thetradeway

[thetradeway]

Session 15: 30 Jul 2022

No Giles again; we soldier on without him while sending ‘thumbs down’ gifs on the group chat.

We open the last door before the stairs - there is a library with a lectern in front of the fire, with a schmancy looking book sitting locked on it. All the shelves are packed with books, and there are rolling ladders all over the place. Pfenig wants to know if there are any books of an erotic nature; to bring back for Giles, naturally.

Hazel tries to pick the lock on the book - she successfully does so. Around her three things materialise - we roll Initiative! Luckily Hazel rolls a nat 20 - she might need it.

These things are Specters, Nuri knows with a good Arcana check. They can reduce our max HP if we don’t make a good CON save… This could be interesting! Good thing we’ve got a cleric!

Vervain uses Twilight Sanctuary to give everyone some measure of protection, and some temp HP. Nuri busts out a new trick - Green-Flame Blade. The spectres halve the fire damage, unfortunately. They do not halve the radiant damage from Vervain’s cantrip, but two of them make the save. Dammit. Pfenig tries necrotic damage, which they ignore. Well, balls. He does Shilldfkgjhsdghjhh.

Pfenig gets the last one; how-de-do-dis? “I whisk it like an egg.”

Well that’s that then.

The book describes family events of the noble family throughout history. Births, deaths, social events. Nuri thinks it’s boring, so Pfenig and Hazel take a look - they find some more interesting details.

This family have done deals with devils; there is tiefling blood in this family. Pfenig says that others might find this salacious, but he thinks it’s regular. He swishes his tail. Perhaps there’s blackmail involved here? Nuri takes the book into his Lamp of Holding, and leaves it there. We might find a way to use it.

There’s another door by the stairs, but Hazel is convinced there must be a secret switch in one of the books on the shelves; she goes around pulling at books and candlesticks, but nothing happens. We go to the last door, after some Healer’s Kit uses.

We open the last door, to see a portrait of the man of the house. This appears to be his office. There is a wresting mat, and some slightly homoerotic statues. Many of the ‘books’ are not books at all, but are boxes painted to look like books, with smutty artwork hidden inside. Hazel takes one for Giles.

We take a short tea making break.

Heading for the stairs we hear the clanging of metal on metal. Pfenig and Vervain, as the least squishy members, go first. There is a pile of bodies at the top, in a spreading pool of blood.

Behind the door at the top we can hear a woman screaming, and someone trying to boot it down. Nuri: “I smell crime.”

Around the corner are a group of Zhents fighting the house guard. Vervain sneaks up and whacks a Zhent in the back of the head. Initiative time!

Hazel begins with assassinating one - she can do that now. She kills him outright. (Vervain makes a note to be very nice to her.)

The fight continues between the Zhents and the guard for a while before the order comes back to us. Vervain sees a Zhent bash a guard in the head; he drops. Vervain looks to see if he might be saveable, but the DM mentions the phrase ‘bag of gravel’ when describing the state of the man’s head. Probably kinder to let that one go.

“With an ululating cry,” Pfenig leaps and swings with his Shillskghsglsd;fjgh. He can still use his necrotic thing, which is still up from the previous fight.

Nuri thinks; “No, that’s overkill…” He decides on Firebolt instead. “Make a wish, punk!”

Vervain heals one of the guard, and asks where the rest of the fighting is - the guards point us toward the door to the south, behind which we hear kicking. It’s an en suite. There is a man in there, wearing Zhent armour but fancy. This looks very much like the man who limped away from Trollskull Alley…

It’s Urstal Floxin.

There is a cage on a stand in here with him - he dashes to it and throws it open. Pfenig, hopefully: “Perhaps nothing will happen and it will be great.”

But, no, three flying snakes emerge. One drops dead from disgust at Pfenig’s Symbiotic Entity spores.

Vervain hits with Guiding Bolt, so Pfenig uses the Advantage to go for Floxin’s teeth; he hits, and does some necrotic damage as well.

We realise (not belatedly, for once) that we want this guy alive. Pfenig withdraws his staff from Floxin’s mouth. “Submit?” It is immediately clear that he will not.

On the floor is some sort of magic circle. Ah, fuck. Pfenig makes an Arcana check but fails it.

Nuri decides to give something a go. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you… Urstal Floxin… Covered in Bees!” He casts Infestation from a scroll. Floxin makes the save, sadly. Worth a shot.

Hazel hides and shoots, “non-lethally”. Urstal puts his head down and tries to barrel past Nuri, forcing a contested STR check - Nuri stops him, and Pfenig gets an Attack of Opportunity.

Vervain misses with their flail. And Spiritual Weapon. Oh dear.

Hazel brings him down with an arrow. The woman of the house screams at us to get out; the Watch are on their way.

So what do we do with him? Tie him to a chair, slap him about a bit, question him. We still need to find the mechanical man; Floxin was kicking a door in that bathroom, we go in and have a peek. Hazel throws Pfenig the keys.

He knocks on the door. We have subdued the criminal. The door emerges; it is the man of the house. Pfenig gives him a little curtsy, and explains that we’re the heroes. We were in the neighbourhood, being heroic, so we thought we’d drop by. You’re welcome? We’ll be leaving soon with the prisoner.

Does he know what Urstal was doing here? The man insists he’s never seen him before, but a quick nat 20 Insight from Hazel reveals that to be bullshit.

We ask about the nimblewright. The man asks if his wife is around; we point him toward the screaming. He hurries us into the bathroom, saying it wouldn’t be good if his wife overheard us. Nuri drags Urstal in behind us.

We’re here about the stone of Golor, yes? What is it we want to know?

Well, where is it? That, and the nimblewright.

He says he doesn’t know. His wife’s mechanical servant was here, but it’s gone. Nuri shows him the doohickey. The man says the nimblewright has fled, did so when the Zhents broke in. Pfenig opens up the nimblewright and pulls the trigger; nothing happens.

Well shit.

Where’s it gone? The man isn’t sure. Oh, this is all too much!

The gnome that got exploded was bringing the stone to us, having heard how we rescued Renaer. Does Floxin have it?

The stone is some sort creature that’s been turned to stone. It knows the location of half a million Dragons, somewhere in Waterdeep. Everyone is seeking this thing.

He’s been bankrolling the Zhents and their little search for the stone - including the plot to kidnap Renaer. THey’ve been harbouring Floxin here, he was supposed to be locating the stone. The wife gave the nimblewright a Necklace of Fireballs, and told it to go and help Floxin hunt the gnome.

Why was Floxin attacking the family? Well the first plan was to kidnap Renaer. Then they heard the gnome had it. The wife interfered, so Urstal attacked the family in revenge.

So Nim’s creation likely wasn’t the one who threw the Fireball. The wife saw the mechanical man on the roof, and befriended it; it thinks it’s her friend, and she thinks it’s her servant. So maybe it was, then.

The wife starts screaming again. Nuri: “Madam, you are hysterical, take a seat!”

So the stone and the nimblewright are both still missing…

We’ve searched Floxin and he doesn’t seem to have the stone. He has some gold, a healing potion, and his sword (with poison residue, but not actual poison). We remove those from his person.

Hazel feels a hand on her back and she is shoved out of the way - the screaming woman is staring down her nose at her.

She tells us again to get out of her house, and is very rude about it. Pfenig waves his tail and sticks out his tongue. We leave and take our prisoner with us, and warn her not to tell anyone we were here. Nuri scorches her bedsheets as we leave.

As we leave - oh shit the magma mephit! We see the sun isn’t far off coming up. THere are three shades flitting around in the courtyard, and traces of magma all over the ground. The groundskeeper and his dogs are running around being chased by them. Whoops…

We take Floxin back to Trollskull Alley to tortur- uhhhhh, question him. Vervain has Zone of Truth, but not prepared. They can question him tomorrow, or we can do it the old fashioned way? Nuri has an idea - Skeemo might have some bits and bobs, Nuri can get some cash together and buy the ingredients and a recipe for a truth serum. That might take a few days, though… Pfenig could try Charm Person?

Hmm…

Should we just hand him to the Watch? That sounds like the best option, it feels like he’ll die before he tells us anything. We hand him over.

In the following days, the newspaper is full of stories about the incident at the manor. Several people - including some we recognise from the Portal - are arrested. Hazel is advised to lay low.

A flying snake arrives at the tavern with a note attached. If we can spare the time meet the writer at the city of the dead. We will be aid handsomely for our time. This person is a Zhent but we don’t know which kind. The flying snake suggests bad, but we know the writer is a Doom Raider.

We go to the statue. At the foot is a female dwarf with armour. Hazel makes an Insight check and fails. Nuri and Vervain can tell she’s come alone.

She assures us that the Doom Raiders are not involved with the villa incident. All the Zhents are being investigated; she needs to lay low. She will give us money just to meet her, and she will pay us more if we will let her stay at Trollskull Alley for a ten-day. and she will work for free.

We agree to let her stay. She has no people skills and is quite difficult to get on with. But we get 50pp out of it.

At the end of the ten-day she shakes us by the hand, and leaves. As she does, a female wizard arrives, and thrusts a note at Nuri. It has been sealed, but very obviously opened. Nuri looks at it. "You've read this?" he asks the wizard.

"Yes, it concerns me, of course I've read it." Oh, ok.

The party agree to let Thessalie join them for a while. There are no rooms left at Trollskull Alley so she will stay at the Yawning Portal, and has agreed to help with the cooking at Trollskull in the evenings.

With that all done, we call it a night.

#dnd #dragon heist #dragon heist spoilers

[thetradeway]

Session 57, Christmas Special part 2: "That's festive as fuck. Let's kill 'em."

(January 8th, 2022)

Matthew and Sophie watched a mediocre series on Netflix about elves; Duncan escaped a Christmas hangover but it caught him up at New Years. I watched a weird black comedy starring Keira Knightley about a poisonous cloud coming over England to kill everyone, and how people spent their last Christmas before they took government-issued pills to kill themselves. Lovely! So… Where were we? Ah yes - deadly snowmen. And Krampus.

We take a short rest and decide on a game plan. Gideon searches one of the ‘Lovely chalets’. He finds a chest and busts it open. Inside there are lots of cold weather clothes, fur trimmed. He asks if there are any gloves as his rheumy hands get ever so cold. He rolls a 13 rummaging check and finds some that will just fit on his clubby hands.

There are some baked biscuits, about which Ahleqs has a bad feeling. Gideon makes a Perception check to sniff them. A 3; they smell like lovely butter biscuits. “One little nibble couldn’t hurt.” It doesn’t do any damage, but tastes slightly grainy. Otherwise they are lovely. He finishes it and takes another.

Ahleqs still isn’t sure. Gideon: “What? I’m hungry!”

Galloway explores another chalet and finds a Yule tree; he backs away slowly and closes the door again. Ahleqs has a look for a Christmas Onesie in the same chalet Gideon just explored. It seems safe enough; he came out alive. He finds a cloak; it isn’t stylish, but it’ll keep him warm. He throws it around his shoulders and heads back out to the rest of us. He also did find a onesie; he retroactively decides to put it in his inventory under ‘Treasure’.

We ascend the steps to the door through which the ‘kindly old lady’ disappeared. It’s made of ice. Gideon prods it with his bemittenéd hand; he stays toasty warm as he does so. He Arcana checks it; it was made by magic, but is not actively magical. Gunna sees the large circular door handles, and also spots a keyhole.

Ahleqs checks for other details and finds a Christmas scene - trees and fireplaces and bubbling cauldrons and kids being skinned. Festive. He points to the last parts. “And these are the areas of most concern.”

Gideon tries the door to find it locked. “Blast.”

Melaina takes a crack at the lock. There is a locking mechanism, but the opening to it is frozen over. Can Ahleqs use Fire Bolt “but in a very small way? Turn it down to the very lowest setting?” He can, so he does, but the ice doesn’t move or melt. Ahleqs looks sheepish.

Well how can we melt magical ice, if magical fire doesn’t work? Melaina thinks we should try Christmas cheer. Gideon thinks we should try the Northman's axe.

Melaina and Ahleqs are horrified to hear tortured screaming from the other side of the door. It sounds like Kessler, to Ahleqs. Melaina makes an Arcana check to see if she can figure out how to dispel the ice. She makes a check with her Thieves’ tools and adds her Arcana modifier. 24 total. From what she can see, the ice is magical. she thinks there might be a magical key that could pass through the ice.

Ahleqs thinks we should all stick together as we investigate the chalets after all; he is outvoted before he has even finished speaking because the rest of us immediately rush off to check the other huts.

Gideon goes back to the Yule tree that Galloway backed away from, and gets awarded Inspiration. He approaches and tries to rummage for keys - it gets up. And up. And up.

Galloway: “I FUCKING KNEW IT!”

Melaina: “Show us your baubles.”

We roll initiative.

Matthew is seeing to Baby Wee Jock, so Sophie takes Gunna’s turn. She forgot to move him before we rolled Initiative, so Joe lets her move him retroactively. She takes Melaina’s turn instead as she was next in the order, as Matthew won’t be long. She can see Gideon but not the tree; she doesn’t necessarily know what’s going on. She can see that Ahleqs has soiled himself about something though, so she moves toward him to see if she can see what’s going on. (Presumably holding her nose.) She readies an attack.

BWJ is in bed, but Matthew is trying to sneak out of the door without waking him which is taking a while. Ah - he arrives! (BWJ is awake but not screaming, so that’ll do for now.) Sophie shows him where he is and what’s going on.

What are the roofs made of, Gunna wants to know? They are steeply sloped and tiled, so a torch to the roof won’t do much.

Gideon, inside the hut, indignant: “I won’t have you roast me like a chestnut!”

Instead Gunna moves up and fires an arrow at it. He misses horribly and gets to roll on the special table: Dust in your eyes. Your weapon’s range is reduced by 1/2 for 1d4 rounds. He hits with his second attack for 11 damage. Is his bow magical?

“In one word, no.” It does half damage; Gunna is cross.

The little tree is going to take against the nosy mugger, and slams into the bearded chestnut.

Gideon: “Shit! Um…”

It hits him, twice, and does A LOT of damage.

“Help! He’s breaking my bones!”

Ahleqs is so afraid. He refuses to get closer, but does a Fire Bolt. No - Eldritch Blast is better! But Fire Bolt is fire, though, so he does that. Melaina is right next to him so he doesn’t try for Tides of Chaos. The Fire Bolt hits and is super effective!

Galloway hits it, missing on his first try, and does Patient Defense. Gideon takes the chance to move away without incurring an Attack of Opportunity, and hits the tree with Ray of Enfeeblement. 17 hits! It is Enfeebled and deals only half damage with STR based attacks. Ha!

Joe: “You monster.”

Gideon slams a potion and catches his breath.

Melaina hides, steps into the doorway, shoots, and retreats back behind cover. She goes for a Sharpshooter and 15 hits.

“I’m going to roll again in case I get a natural 20.” She rolls again and gets a natural 20!

Between the shoulders: Max damage and roll the damage dice again. That’s max damage on all her sneak attack dice as well, by the way. She is still calculating damage when Joe interrupts, desperately shouting: “How de do dis! How de do dis!”

Gideon and Galloway Investigate the tree for the key, but among the children's finger bones cannot see anything that looks like a key. Gideon tries an Arcana check; now it’s dead, he can’t sense any magic coming off it. But he does spot another tree in one of the other chalets. He sighs heavily.

Gideon wants to inspect the next tree from a distance and presses his nose to the glass of the chalet window, but Gunna has already stormed inside to attack. He earns himself a surprise round. He gets a nat 20 on his second attack: Max damage and you may make another attack with Advantage against the same target.

Joe: “You horrible bully.” The tree limps to its feet, and we roll initiative. Galloway runs in, picks up a log from the fire and hucks it at the tree. He misses, swears, and does Patient Defense. Ahleqs does Fire Bolt, for 6 damage. The tree hates that though, so it takes double damage.

“That’s what you get!” Ahleqs shouts as he runs away.

The tree slams and bites at Gunna. Matthew, upon seeing that it rolled a Nat 1: “Ha ha, it critically bit itself.”

Melaina is AFK, so on her behalf, Matthew has her hide and shoot, she hits it for 33 damage, shattering it into splinters.

She investigates and finds a key. Yay!

The tree’s remains disappear and we hear creepy noises, and Gideon hears something puff into nothingness in the last remaining chalet. They are now safe, so we can take a long rest in the beds there.

Galloway: “... So you’re all fine with letting your goblin just scream in agony for the next eight hours or so, yeah? We’re all okay with that?”

Gideon, immediately: “Yes.”

We discover/remember that we only get half our hit dice back on a long rest. Joe: “You don’t need hit dice where you’re going, anyway.”

Duncan, OOC: Only living people get to use hit dice.”

Gideon snaffles more biscuits, brushing a load into his pouch upon noticing them. We have a look at these biscuits; Ahleqs notices a little particle in the biscuits that is bigger than the other crumbs; he thinks it might be part of a tooth.

He checks to see if Gideon has a mouthful before telling him this. Gideon short-circuits a bit. What sort of tooth does it look like? It looks like a person tooth, only small.

Added calcium at his age is good for his bones though, right? He isn’t sure how to feel about this. “We don’t know this is a person tooth, do we?” he says, eating another biscuit.

Maybe it’s a one off. You know when you buy frozen peas, and sometimes there’s a ladybird? Maybe it’s like that.

We should go.

We go up to the door all together. Galloway readies an attack, and Melaina tries the key in the door. Ahleqs casts Mage Armour. Gunna casts Muscles.

The key slides through the ice and turns in the lock. The doors creak and swing open.

We see the old woman briefly, but she smiles and disappears.

There is another set of doors, but no keyhole or handles. There is also a natural nasty dank cave that fills us with bone-chilling dread, so we don’t need to go through the doors anyway. Gunna pushes the door, and we all make Perception checks. Galloway hears a terrifying screams as the door opens just a crack. They sound like children's screams. The doors seem to be chained on the other side. Ahleqs hears what must be Kessler screaming. (He will never get over the fact that she’s been here for at least the last eight hours.) Melaina and the Grease Wizard also hear screaming, but they also hear a deep rumbling laughter that nearly makes them shit themselves.

Should we see what the chilling caves have to offer?

Gunna has a thought: What if there’s treasure? Gunna is now filled with a new sense of wonder. Apparently the biscuits aren’t enough treasure. We sneak and perceive, with varying degrees of success. We hear manic fluttering like giant bumblebees, and the scritchy-scratching of glass sliding across ice. Gideon’s greasy wizard brain deduces that the noise is probably ice mephits.

Gunna makes a Nature check to see if he knows if the mephits can see in the dark. He twelves it. He’s not sure, but he thinks so.

Joe: “They do emit a little bit of blue light, though, because it’s Christmas.”

Gunna: “That’s festive as fuck. Let’s kill ‘em.”

Ahleqs does Fire Bolt with twinned spell. He crit-fails the first but hits with the second. Quite the Opposite: The target is infused with the damage type of the spell for the next 1d4 rounds. Each time the target makes a melee attack, they add 1d4 of that damage type. Cool; so the ice mephit will now do fire damage in addition to whatever other bullshit it has.

The mephits stop dead and stare at Ahleqs, let out a high pitched scream to let something else know that we’re here, and we roll initiative. Gideon at the fore, this time.

“Oh, why not. Let’s have some fun!” He summons Rusty, yay! He bungs him in the middle of the mephits and orders him to engage them. Rusty Grave-Bolts a mephit, but misses. Gideon: “Put your spine into it!” Wait - his forgot to add his spell attack bonus. Plus 8 is 16, which hits after all. “I retract my unkind words!”

Rusty does a calculated flail and pretends to miss, before hitting with an undead tendril which squishes the mephit into icy little shards. Rusty lets out a Halloweeny cackle before turning to the next mephit ready for his next turn.

Melaina shoots a Scorching Ray at the remaining one for 7 damage, which is super-effective. Melaina, pleased: “Nice.”

(We discover that Ahleqs is standing on top of Galloway. Galloway: “Buy me a drink first, Jesus.” Ahleqs explains that it was just a bit of a terrified Scooby Doo moment.)

A mephit does Frost Breath at Gideon and Gunna, who have to make Dex saves DC10. Both pass, and take only 2 cold damage.

Two more rush up and get in Galloway, Melaina and Ahleqs’s faces, and also Rusty’s. Rusty is flanked, so the mephit gets Advantage. It hits, and does 5 damage including 1 fire thanks to Ahleqs’ misfire.

Gunna is up. “I’m going to twat it.” 25 hits. “Now, is it a humanoid?” It is not, so he doesn’t add the extra damage he would have got. Nine damage total.

Joe: “That was unkind.”

“If it’s not perished yet, I shall strike it again.” 13 also hits, for 8 damage, and does he want the good news or the bad news?

Matthew, OOC: “Just the good news please.”

He got the how de do dis, chopping it cleanly in half, but as it dies it explodes in a burst of jagged ice. He has to make a Dex save or get shards of ice in the face. 13 is a success, so he does not. He advances on the ones attacking Rusty for the rest of his movement.

A mephit explodes and all of us make Dex saves; Melaina and Galloway have Evasion and pass their saves taking no damage; Ahleqs has a ring of evasion so he expends a charge. He fails, but only takes half damage. A whopping two.

Joe: “And he died in vain, he didn’t get to fuck up any of your days.”

Ahleqs: “That was my favourite thing about him.”

The last mephit turns and points his ass at Rusty and Gunna, holding his ankles, and farts ice in their faces. Both succeed their saves, only taking two damage.

Galloway runs up and hits the fire imbued one, which explodes. He and Rusty make Dex saves, and Galloway still has Evasion so he smugly takes no damage.

Gideon wants to lob acid at a mephit, so he does. It has to make a Dex save, which it fails, taking 7 acid damage.

Joe: “Stinker.”

Gideon: “Rusty, strike the final blow!”

“Without fail, Boss!” He hits with Grave Bolt, for 11 Necrotic damage - and Gunna and Rusty must make Dex saves. Gunna aces his as the mephit flies across the cave and smashes to bits.

“You’ve killed all my beautiful little ice-skatey creatures.”

Gunna sees an ethereal-looking old woman who smiles at him and beckons him. She looks highly amused. She walks into the room and disappears.

“And you all hear some horrendous laughter in your ears, so that’s nice.”

Remember that deep booming laughter some of us heard earlier? We see what might have made it. It has eyes like the Witcher and horns more impressive than Galloway’s. He smiles, and steps back into the shadows leaving us with nothing but the sound of his laughter.

“It’s very dramatic.”

We break for coffee.

We see a street urchin in a cage, and the Krampus’ throne made of children’s bones. Gunna comforts the urchin. Well he tries - persuasion isn’t his strong suit, but he does roll a 19. The urchin hugs his knees and makes himself small, quieting his screams for now.

We don’t see the goblin, though. The fire crackling seems louder than it should, and we have a general feeling of doom and being watched but that’s it.

There are stairs leading down past the urchin’s cage, and a locked door to the south of the room. There are blood smears on the floor.

While we’re looking around, does 19 hit Melaina in the back?

Krampus has charged and hit her from behind with his horns, causing an extra six bludgeoning damage. 14 total, and she fails her STR save so she is knocked prone.

Duncan, OOC: “Well that’s not very jolly.”

He does Frightful Presence, causing most of us to be Frightened. Ahleqs does ToC and casts Fog Cloud centred on himself, but Krampus can still see through it and aims a whip at him. It hits, for 7 slashing and 9 fire - and then charges at him to try and stuff him into his bag. Ahleqs fails his STR save and is pulled toward Krampus, and they make an opposed STR checks. Somehow, Ahleqs wins the check and avoids being stuffed into the bag.

Krampus aims his whip at Rusty, who is obliterated. Krampus stuffs Rusty’s bones into the bag - well he tries, but the bones vanish.

With the surprise round over, we roll initiative…

We are less than amused when Krampus rolls the highest and gets to go first. Joe, smug: “If it’s any consolation, I’m having a great time.”

Ahleqs gets an Attack of Opportunity, and has to ask how to do a physical attack. He has a fruit knife, so he flails away with that.

Ahleqs: “Stab! … Thirteen?”

Joe: “You done missed.”

Ahleqs: “That’s fair.”

Krampus attacks Gunna and hits for 8 bludgeoning, then uses his ruten switch. 20 hits, for 7 slashing and 8 psychic damage. He then turns to Gideon to try and grapple him. Opposing STR checks - at Disadvantage for Gideon, because he’s Frightened. Gideon loses.

“Unhand me, you fetid creature!”

Gunna doesn’t like being near Krampus. He attacks at Disadvantage, and misses. He tries again, not really looking properly - another miss. He then fails his Wisdom save, failing to end the Frightened effect.

Galloway: "I don't like being Frightened, so I'm going to be not Frightened any more." He uses Stillness of Mind and ends the Frightened effect, moves away and uses Patient Defense.

Melaina hides - she rolls really well, but has the feeling that Krampus still knows where she is. She shoots with her longbow, at Disadvantage. 19 - which hits! only 21 damage.

“Oh, bollocks.”

Her bow is magical, so Krampus takes all of that. He grunts, and looks up from the Grease Wizard to cast his baleful eye at her instead. She makes a WIS save versus Fright, and fails. She uses the rest of her movement to get further away, and has a little secret fear-wee.

Ahleqs, with genuine sympathy: “There’s no shame in it.”

Grease Wizard has gone for a sausage. We shoot the shit until he returns. Joe didn’t mind waiting; “It’s important that it’s you.”

Duncan, OOC: “That’s nice and ominous.”

Does Krampus have a challenge rating, Ed wants to know? He does.

“It’s three figures, though,” Matthew puts in helpfully.

It’s not really, but it is double figures, which honestly probably isn’t that much better.

Ed, suddenly: “Oh - of course! Of course! What better way to escape? I cast Grease!”

Krampus sees the Grease and raises him a Sure-Footed, granting him Advantage on his Dex save. Well… fuck. He rolls 16, which is just what he needed.

With his Action spent Gideon cannot make an attempt to break free, and goes limp in Krampus’ grip. He can make a WIS save versus the Fright though - and he succeeds!

Krampus can use his Reaction - and does Binding Grasp to try to restrain Gideon. Not surprisingly, Gideon fails the contested STR check.

Ahleqs does Burning Hands, at 4th level. Ed, OOC: “How flammable is the Grease?” Krampus must make a DEX save, DC16. Krampus also has Magic Resistance, giving him Advantage on saves versus spells.

It’s Krampus’ turn; we brace ourselves. He bundles the Grease Wizard into the Basket of Torment.

He uses his Ruten switch on Gunna again. 20 hits, for 8 slashing and 10 psychic. Then he tries to bundle Gunna into the basket as well. Gunna rolls a 12 and is not grappled, somehow.

Gunna: “… my word.”

It’s Gunna’s turn. Having seen him bundle Gideon into the basket, he makes an attack at Disadvantage because he’s still Frightened. 16 misses, but 22 hits. Krampus makes a STR save, which he fails! He is forced to drop the Basket and/or Sack of Torment.

Well; the basket is strapped to him so he can’t drop it. Gunna chooses the Ruten Switch - wait. In the picture, Krampus is in fact holding the sack with one hand. So Joe rules that he does drop it. Yay!

Galloway runs up and hits Krampus, missing once and hitting once, and drags the sack away with Gideon in it.

Melaina is AFK so Matthew has her shoot, but she misses. She hides again, but has the feeling Krampus can still see her. She repeats her WIS save, but fails.

Gideon is in the sack still, so he misses his turn.

Ahleqs goes for an Eldritch Blast. “Pyaaaoooowww!” Both miss, one critically. Where did that come from? If this attack deals cold, fire, force, lightning or thunder damage, an elemental chosen by the DM appears within 60ft of you. It is hostile to all creatures. Joe is nice to us and decides it’s another ice mephit. Phew!

Krampus runs up to Galloway for an attack, incurring an Attack of Opportunity from Gunna - who crit fails. Double edged shield: make a DC14 STR save. On fail take 1d4 damage and you are unable to speak properly for 1d4 rounds. Woof.

Krampus hits Galloway for 12 damage and tries to knock him down, but fails - he grapples him instead, pinning him to the floor. Krampus then chooses to do 10 psychic damage to Gideon, just because he can. Galloway uses his reaction to be very cross.

Gunna’s turn. He casts Hunter’s Mark on Santa. He shoots but crit fails: Your stance is off. DC14 WIS save or take 1d6 penalty to next ranged attack roll. Good news is he succeeds the save versus Fright.

Galloway can still attack, so he does, headbutting Krampus and kicking him in the fork, and throws in a Flurry of Blows as well. Krampus responds by Binding Grasping him.

Galloway, slightly strained: “Merry Christmas to me…”

Melaina crit fails her next shot - Off target. You deal 1/2 damage for 1d4+1 rounds.

Joe: “ … That is brutal.”

Ahleqs, save the day! He casts Haste on Gunna. Noice.

Krampus stuffs Galloway into the bag and does 10 Psychic damage to both Galloway and Gideon, then advances on Ahleqs with his whip. He takes 7 slashing and 18 fire damage, and has to make a STR save to avoid being dragged. Ahleqs uses Tides of Chaos, for Advantage, and rolls a 3 and a 4, and is dragged and summarily Grappled.

He and everyone within 30 feet now have vulnerability to piercing damage for the next minute. He makes a STR save, but fails and is grappled.

Gunna is up. “My speed is doubled, so… Hi Krampus. Hitty-hitty!” He misses. He attacks again and hits this time. “Strength save, please. And none of this fruity chooses-to-succeed business.” He forces Krampus to drop the sack again, and does some more damage. He takes a third attack thanks to Haste.

Joe: “That’s just greedy.”

Gunna: “Oh, I ain’t even finished yet.” He takes two more attacks with Action Surge, but misses with all of them.

Galloway has been bagged, so Melaina is up. She’s AFK, so Matthew has her do a big shoot. Without Sharpshooter. 21 hits, for half damage because of her crit-fail last round. 27 halved is 13. She tries to hide again - but even with a 30, Krampus still knows where she is.

Gideon is also bagged, so it’s Ahleqs’ turn. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Everything’s going to be great. I cast Misty Step.” He vanishes from Krampus’ grasp and reappears 30 feet away. He can do Eldritch Blast again, so he does, and hits with both.

Matthew, OOC: “Now we’re cooking with Eldritch Gas!”

Kampus runs to attack Ahleqs, but incurs an Attack of Opportunity from Gunna, who natty 20s him. He throws in a Superiority die, and forces a STR save - which Krampus fails and trips, falling prone.

His natural 20 includes doing max damage - which is enough to kill Krampus. Gunna strikes his legs and cuts them off, and Krampus bleeds out. Yay!

Gunna knows, however, that Krampus is only dead until next Christmas. So we’d better stay off his naughty list…

Galloway and Gideon spill out of the bag, along with a bunch of children’s bones. Gunna tosses the sack into the fire; without Krampus around, it just burns.

The urchin in the cage thanks us upon being freed, and tells us there are more urchins and a goblin further in. Two are behind the door, and two more and the goblin are down the stairs.

We try the door; it is, predictably, locked. Ahleqs, wailing: “Melainaaaaaaa!”

She checks for traps, and sees no sign of any with a ten. She picks the lock - the door opens. Inside are two little urchins hiding in the corner.

Let’s go and get Kessler then. We tell the urchins to keep an eye on each other, and Gunna gives them a ration to share.

We find the remaining children, and untie Kessler.

We’ve solved Joe’s Christmas puzzle, yay!

But what about the old lady? Bad news is she’s not here, good news is we’ll probably meet her again.

Cool.

The portal opens again as we approach it, and we zip back to Waterdeep with the urchins in tow. A very merry Christmas all around - except for Joe, who didn't manage to kill any of us.

#campaign diary #thetradeway #dnd

[thetradeway]

Session 56, Christmas Special: "You never *did* have any sweets, did you?!"

(December 18, 2021)

Ed joins us, Mina is away. Joe explains the last session to Ed, who wasn’t here. This week we will be mostly doing… a Christmas Special! (Notes may be a little sporadic in combat, as I am learning how to Monk)

We are approaching midwinter; it’s really fucking cold. Gideon longs for the underground where there are no seasons, and Galloway continues to shiver and grumble.

We have some time off from working on the book. Jirr approaches our table in the Dagger and asks if we’ve heard about the missing kids. (Duncan says that if any part of this Christmas Special has Melaina on a shelf, he’s out.)

“What missing children?”

By Sleeper’s Walk, five kids have completely disappeared. There’s no profit in it, but it’s kids. The first two, people assumed they’d come back, but now it’s getting weird. Gideon suggests they have joined a gang of pickpockets. Have they checked the gazebo, and the top end of Chezzy?

Gideon wants a party as a reward if we find the kids. Jirr isn’t sure about that, but there will be people drinking and fighting and vomiting in the Dagger later, will that do? Will there be hats, we want to know.

Gideon checks on his flumph and demands it produce festive colours. It does so. Jirr asks where is the goblin with the attitude? We all look at Gideon, who shrugs. Perhaps she’s the one responsible for the missing children, he suggests. Actually, we haven’t seen Kessler for a few days. She came back from the tower with Gideon and stomped into her room but no-one’s seen her since. Ahleqs goes and pounds on her door.

He makes an Investigation check. There are faint marks by her door; muddy tracks. Her door isn’t locked. He shouts, but gets no response. He doesn’t like this. He ducks a bit so his head is normal head height, and pushes the door open - the room is empty. She’s usually tidy, but her chair is tipped over on the floor and it looks like there’s been a scuffle. Her stuff is still there - including her armour. He rolls Investigation again. 19. She’s been writing something, Ahleqs can’t read it. Underneath her writing in a childish scrawl is written the word “Naughty”. Uh oh. Has she been kidnapped along with the children?

He takes the paper down to show the rest of us, and tells us she left her armour. We all take a look at the paper. None of us recognise the handwriting.

The missing kids are mostly orphans, Jirr tells us. Jirr has connections with the criminal element in the city; she might well take an interest in these kids especially if they’re working as pickpockets or something.

We arrive at the Trades Ward orphanage; it’s run down, not a good place to be. Gideon plays in the snow on the way there. He makes an Investigation check as he’s there, a 22! He notices certain areas of the snow look disturbed. There is a picture in the snow beneath one of the orphanage windows:

Do any of us recognise this Krampoid beast? Can we make nature checks? Gideon notices that there are traces of magic; the picture was put here magically. He Arcana’s it: Bad roll, good modifier. He rolls high enough to know it’s fey magic, though.

The staff at the orphanage are reluctant to talk to us; they’re very busy. We could slip in unnoticed if we wanted. (So fantasy social services is just as bad as real social services then.) (No wonder these kids went missing.)

Gunna tries to entice a cat over with some loose dried meat he happens to have on his person. He makes an Animal Handling check at Advantage since he has an edible bribe. 12; the cat seems reluctant to get too close. He casts Speak with Animals.

“Stinky scary human. Delicious delicious food.” He asks her name; she demands to know what he wants. He pulls out another piece of food. More where that came from if she can tell him if she’s seen a really tall guy with horns and a bag full of kids?

The cat asks how much ham is it worth. He says he has a fistful, and pulls it out. (Sophie tells Matthew and Joe to stop saying 'ham', as Goose is in the room and will think he's getting some.) “Gizzit and I’ll tell ya,” the cat demands. He gizzes it, and she says no big guy with horns, but a four legged guy with horns and and a two legged guy with a big nose. One kid in the bag. Hmm. Nose guy is smaller than Gideon, much smaller. “I am full now, good day sir.” She looks Gunna in the eye. “I said, good day, sir.”

So a gnome, or goblin, or hobbit, or halfling, and a goat maybe?

Ahleqs gets a nat20 on persuasion, and manages to get the attention of one of the staff. She didn’t notice any kids were missing, but that’s not unusual because they come and go at all hours. We’re welcome to look around, but if we find any open windows could we close them please? She’s found several open windows, and snow all over the floors. Hmm.

Some rooms have loads and loads of bunk beds. It’s hard to keep track of whose room is which. It’s chaotic, and there are all ages from toddlers to pre-teens. (Matthew starts singing “You’ve got to pick a pocket or two, boys”.)

Galloway grabs a passing urchin to ask it what it’s seen. He’s quite new, and all his friends are still here, but some of the others went to see the old lady by Sleeper’s Walk, but haven’t come back.

We all start looking for the kid that looks like the Artful Dodger - slightly taller than the others, a bit more knowledgeable, jangles when he runs. There's got to be one around here somewhere. Gunna flips a coin into the middle of the room and makes a grab for one of the taller ones that goes for it. He makes a Dex check - 15, to the kid’s 21. The kid makes off with the coin. "Shit."

Ahleqs produces Simon and lights him up, getting the attention of all of the kids at once. He looks hard at Simon and asks him out loud if he knows which kid knows about the old lady at Sleeper’s Walk. A gnome child offers to tell him about the old lady in exchange for Simon. He agrees, but she doesn't trust him - mouse first please, slide it over under this jam jar. Gunna discreetly unsheathes a throwing axe, while Ahleqs slides Simon over to the gnome girl.

If you go by Sleeper’s Walk the old lady gives you sweets and gingerbread and all sorts of treats, the kid says. She is squeezing Simon, wants to make socks out of him. Gideon casts Enlarge on Simon. She squeezes until he bursts, and then he enlarges, and the kid looks absolutely horrified. Then Simon vanishes.

The party immediately begin to try and frighten the kids, who scatter. Gunna grabs the mouse-squeezer by the scruff. She snarls and pulls a shard of broken glass from somewhere on her person. Gunna walks to the window, and opens it with his free hand. He holds her out of the window. “Do you wanna know something? This is my weak arm.”

“You don’t have the stones!” she spits, and slashes her broken glass at him.

How high a fall is it, Gunna wants to know. Ten feet to a sloped porch below. He describes what happens to naughty children at this time of year where he’s from. Reluctantly he pulls her back inside and drops her on the floor. He tells her she has to hide how messed up she is until she gets adopted.

She says she don’t wanna be adopted. She ain’t scared of nothing, not even the guy with the big nose. He came in through the window and took Alice, but she ain’t scared. We should have asked the organ grinder, not the monkeys, this kid spits, glaring at the other kids in the room. They don’t know nothing unless she tells 'em to know it.

That’ll be two gold pieces she demands; Gunna gives her a copper. She bites it between her teeth and drops it into a pouch, and calls him a sucker.

Where is the guy with the big nose? She points around the room at the other kids, calls them idiots. "They deserve to go missing. Going out walking in the middle of the night."

Who has? "Some of them go and see the old lady for sweets." Do they come back? "No. Got any more of those mice?"

Galloway offers a gold piece for info on the old lady.

Big nose has a beard (probably fake, the kid thinks) and is green. Galloway pushes for more info. She demands more money. Galloway likes her. He negotiates, offering her a silver - for now. She is persuaded to accept it.

He was looking for the naughtiest kid, she says. She stabbed him so he took Alice instead; which was stupid, because Alice is a goody two shoes. She didn’t see where he went when he left with Alice.

Galloway gives her another gold piece for her troubles. As we leave we hear the kid giving the other kids a right dressing down.

We head to Sleeper’s Walk. We can at least get the lay of the land.

Sleeper’s Walk is close to the caravans, so there is a lot of horse-related stuff going on. Horseshoe making, wagon wheel fixing, that sort of thing.

Is there a helpful queue of children outside any of the buildings? There doesn’t seem to be anyone around at all. We make Perception checks; Melaina and Ahleqs hear clip clop of tiny hooves. We investigate further - Ahleqs and Melaina see something scampering across the rooftops:

It’s about Kessler-sized, and the stuff in the bag is a child (not fireworks, as pictured). We give chase! It heads east. We hear something heavy land in the snow with a thud. Gunna sees the bag that the creature dropped:

Melaina spots a piece of paper next to the bag and also she smells baked goods. She picks up the paper, reluctantly ignoring the delicious smell for now:

Gunna opens the bag and frees the child. Well he tries; the neck of the sack opens, then opens further and further and further - a huge gust of wind blows us all into the sack.

Before we go, we see the old lady who is making the gust of wind, and she is laughing at us.

Ahleqs, scandalised, as we are whisked away through a portal to another world: “You never did have any sweets, did you!?”

Here is what we see through the portal:

Gideon gives Ahleqs his Transmuter’s Stone so he can have Darkvision, and we stealth forward. Melaina rolls terribly and only gets a 15. (Plus THIRTEEN to stealth! Fucking rogues...)

Ahead of us are two braziers, and a couple of horned skulls on posts, and a path winding away from us.

Gunna and Melaina see the old lady flying in front of the moon on a big gnarly old wooden staff. She lands and slips into one of the cottages around us. Did she see us? Yes.

Some snowmen appear; but they aren't doing anything. Galloway eyes them suspiciously.

It’s colder here than it was in Waterdeep; Galloway hates it. He doesn’t trust the cottages, so he approaches a brazier to try to warm up a bit.

A snowman appears out of nowhere. Galloway: “I KNEW I didn’t trust those fucking snowmen!”

More snowmen appear. They aren’t attacking, yet. Ahleqs gestures rudely at the snowmen and tells them to fuck off. “Stop scaring my friends, not me, obviously.”

Gunna wants to look through the windows of one of the cottages. He sees little beds, and in the far corner, he sees a Yule tree.

The snowmen keep moving. Well they don’t walk; we just blink, and they’ve moved. They’re freaking us out, but we’re reluctant to attack. They’re not doing anything. And what if they’re stuffed full of children?

They seem to be converging around Gunna, who has approached the other brazier - it attacks him. (They saw Galloway in the light form the brazier, but didn’t attack him. Hmm.)

Initiative! Melaina does Scorching Ray and hides. Gideon moves to aim his lightning attack, but he goes between the skulls. We all hear a jingling sound. (Uh oh.) With his spell, he managed to ignite a tree which provided some light, momentarily. Well, he also angered the tree, and another:

Galloway runs up and hits one of the snowmen; it doesn’t do as much damage as he’d like because his staff is non magical so he punches it once with Flurry of Blows, and headbutts it as well. That seems to work better.

The tree does Cold Breath, hitting Gideon, Gunna and Galloway. Galloway retaliates with Hellish Rebuke, for Five Whole Damage. (woo.)

The other tree does it as well, hitting the others. Gunna attacks one of the trees and manages to trip it. He has to roll to see which way it falls; it falls on him so he makes a Dex save. He does make it though, and dives to safety. He attacks again at Advantage now that it is prone.

Ahleqs slams a potion and casts Slow, choosing the trees and the snowman that he can see in his cube to make the save against it. He gets a tree and a snowman.

Melaina does an attack that would kill any normal monster several times over, and hides again.

Gideon, slyly: “I know just the dwarf for the job… Me.” He does ‘a little Thunderwave, I think’. He shuffles forward a bit and casts.

Galloway kicks the prone tree at Advantage and does some damage, but his Flurry of Blows miss. He hops over the wall to escape the cold breath attack if it comes.

The tree stands up. It picks up a rock and slings it at Ahleqs. It misses, even though he somehow managed to forget to cast Mage Armour. The other one pings a rock at him as well, and that one hits. (Joe, gleefully: “Merry Christmas!”) He’s still up though, phew. And he makes his Con save, so Slow is still up.

The snowman slashes at Galloway’s face and crit-fails.

Ahleqs does Misty Step - but not before he does Burning Hands at level 4 on one of the trees, in return for the Christmas Boulder to the head. “Have some Christmas lights.” He gets a how-de-do-dis! He tries to shout “Timber” but his mouth is full of his own blood. He runs away and triggers the appearance of something else. (I don’t see what, because Galloway is behind a wall.) (Edit: It was another snowman.)

Joe: “Again, merry Christmas, Ahleqs!”

The other snowman flanks Galloway and they both hit him - he goes down in the snow, regretting ever leaving the warmth of Calimshan. He didn't come here to die in the snow.

Melaina wants to help Ahleqs with his snowman and does a Scorching Ray at it. He can’t see her so he has no idea why the snowman takes fire damage before his eyes, but he’s grateful.

Gideon, to himself, softly: “Perhaps it is time for me to creep back into the fight.” Then, humming even more softly: *pink panther theme*

He flings a Phantasmal Killer, and creates illusory images of axes and chain saws, and wood chippers, and beard men in flannel, and… It fails the save, and is now Frightened. At the end of each of its turns it must succeed on another save or take a bunch of psychic damage.

Galloway fails a death save.

Gunna’s turn; he crit hits on a snowman: Calf slash, triple damage. And he moves his Hunter’s Mark onto it as well. It hates him, as a free action. It may want to hold on until he’s finished, however. His second attack misses, though, so it goes ahead and hates him.

It attacks back, but misses him.

Ahleqs does Burning Hands again, at level 3 and gets another how de do dis! Duncan, OOC: “Walking in the aaaaaiiiiir…” It’s just a scarf and a carrot now.

He takes his last - er, he means his next, potion.

(Joe has been trying to get us to go in his ‘lovely chalets’ but we don’t trust him so we’ve been refusing, so he has to suggest that there might be potions in them.)

A snowman claws at Gunna again - and he has to make another Wis save, which he fails and becomes Frightened of the snowman.

Melaina shoots, hits, and hides again. Gideon slots the tree in the chops with a Lightning Bolt. It fails the save and takes 28 damage - Gideon gets the how-de-do-dis! He barrels over into one of the snowmen in his excitement.

Galloway fails another death save. (Joe accuses Galloway of trying to spoil Christmas by dying. I accuse him of trying to spoil Christmas by killing my new character.)

Gunna casts Goodberry and mashes one into Galloway’s mouth, bringing him back with one hit point, and drags him to safety. The snowman follows and hits him but even with a crit and 42 damage, he’s still up.

Ahleqs casts Shatter; snowmen are technically made of crystalline water, so they make the save at Disadvantage. One fails, the other succeeds. The Slowed one is destroyed - Shatter freezes it, and it literally shatters, going ‘all in Gunna’s hair and that’. We see Gunna in high contrast black and white as he turns in slow motion, expression wistful.

The remaining snowman rushes Ahleqs, who still hasn’t cast Mage Armour, and attacks him. He uses Bend Luck to subtract 3 from the first attack - “Oh, it still fuckin’ hits me - ” takes some damage, and makes a Wis save. He uses Tides of Chaos to give himself advantage - a 20, and he is not frightened.

Joe, slightly sourly: “It’s a Christmas miracle.”

For the next minute, all his action casting time spells now have a casting time of one bonus action. So he can kick something, as well!

Melaina is AFK, does Matthew fancy roguing for her? He does. She sneaks around, shoots a snowman, and runs back to hide again. It’s engaged with Ahleqs who is slapping at it and crying, but that counts as within melee range so she has advantage. She gets the how de do dis! The arrow wafts Gideon’s hair a bit, and the snowman shatters into snowflakes.

We’re out of combat for now. Galloway uses his Wholeness of Body to regain hit points, and Gunna uses Second Wind. There’s a lot left to go, so we call it there. Ahleqs is in single figures, so we might get a little short rest in one of the chalets which Joe has been trying to get us to visit.

Me: “The problem, Joe, is that we don’t trust you.”

Joe, laughing: “How dare you! I am deeply wounded.”

We call it for today, and will pick up hopefully over Christmas.

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 55, Nov 22 2021: "Would you like to hide behind my barrel?"

Last week, we returned from the Underdark with our poor rescued wizard Olius in tow; upon arriving at Candlekeep, we were promptly arrested. The Avowed wanted to know where the hell Aardvack was; they said he’d come back early without us, and gone on a rampage in Candlekeep, getting drunk and stripping naked before breaking into the vaults.

News to us, he’s right over - Timothy P. Fuckapple??

We know it must have been Ava, the face stealing witch, now in possession of Aardvack’s face. It gives her, among other things, the ability to disguise herself as him. She also has Olius’s face, which gives her all the knowledge he had about Candlekeep and how to get into the vaults. She is looking for a book to complete some kind of ritual, we know from the book we stole from her. Part grimoire and part diary, she was recording some pretty insane shit in there.

We sorted it out with the help of Mr. Pickles and the Avowed let us go, but said we would have to leave now with the actual book we wanted to look at and some members of the Avowed to protect it, rather than wait for a copy to be made. The reason for this was that they were shutting Candlekeep down after ‘Aardvack’s’ rampage. If we wanted to stay we were welcome, but we could end up in Candlekeep for much longer than we planned as they had no idea when they would be able to reopen.

Aardvack, the real one, furiously demanded his ten-day, but was met only with uproarious laughter from Mr. Pickles.

Tarragon was given a book that might potentially contain a cure, or a way to help her sister. She elected to stay in Candlekeep and then go on to find Tansy, leaving the rest of the party behind. Ahleqs and Kessler both kindly offered to help her, and she thanked them but said she needed to do this alone. She went with them all to the courtyard to say goodbye before the rest were transported back to Waterdeep, where a familiar pirate should be waiting for us.

And so we pick up…

Mina is not with us tonight and the jury’s out on Ed, he’s been busy with band stuff lately.

Duncan immediately gets Inspiration for talking about Aardvack running around Candlekeep waving his ‘todger’ around, and making the DM laugh.

Ahleqs makes a Persuasion check - the book has been delivered to the Tower of the Watchful Order. Aardvack and Gideon have learned backgrounds and will be expected to help translate the book we’ve procured; it will be boring so Ahleqs can try to get his way out of it since he don’t have much book learning. They decide he’s a security risk and let him go. He gives the others finger pistols and a little wink as he skips away.

We’re down a Grease Wizard, a faceless pervert and a gnome as they make their way back to the Dagger. They think they might not get a table - but Filiare points them to our usual table where Gunna is sitting with a tiefling who seems to be shivering under a pile of scarves and furs. It’s cold as fuck here, since it’s Uktar (November equivalent) now.

Gunna is banging a tankard around as he tells an animated story to the tiefling, finishing with “And we chopped off his hand!”

Ahleqs joins them and sits down with a nod. “Alright.” Melaina approaches and tells Gunna its his round.

Is Gunna covered in magical items now? Yes - wizardly robes, a jewelled sword that can cast the Wish spell and -

(not really.)

(He looks exactly the same but his hair is longer.)

(He’s waving a chicken leg.)

(Also he has what will eventually become a new sexy scar.)

(And he’s drunk.)

Ahleqs leans forward and says, “So what was I saying?”

Gunna claps him on the back, winding him. and thrusts a chicken leg at him. So what have we been up to?

Ahleqs refers to Aardvack as Gunna’s replacement and tells Gunna about him and Carl - “Oh, you’re gonna love Carl!” He shows him the picture Carl drew. Did Gunna get everything done that he wanted?

Sort of, is the answer. When he arrived at the Purple Rocks, it turned out the dude who sent him the message wasn’t Gunna’s dad after all. It was some sort of doppelgänger who admitted, after Gunna bloodeagled him, that he was trying to undermine the group.

Ahleqs goes a bit green at the mention of bloodeagling.

Gunna introduces Galloway, who says he is hoping that the party might let him join for a while; he's heard a lot of buzz about them, and is looking to do some adventuring. He's a monk, he says, and can offer considerable aid in fighting. He and Gunna have been doing a few jobs for Filiare, and have become friendly in spite of Gunna's initial misgivings about the tiefling thing. In the absence of any protest, Ahleqs says it's probably fine if Galloway joins.

We establish that half the party is doing homework, and that Tarragon has stayed in Candlekeep. Gunna is sad she's not here; she would appreciate the new figurehead on his ship, which is an owlbear.

Reshen arrives with more drinks for us, and Gunna tells the exploding sorcerer story. The orc captain he was fighting shot out his false eye when Gunna hit him; it is made of what looks like ruby. Gunna pulls it out of his pocket and hands it to Melaina, telling her he got it for her.

Sophie: “I blush and go all silly.”

We decide to go pit fighting, and then criming; that way everyone gets to have some fun. Ria joins us at the fighting pits, a grimy place that Gunna has come to know and love - Galloway too, in the last few days. Gunna wipes the floor with his opponent, with a chicken leg in his mouth. Galloway’s fight is more evenly matched, but he still wins.

He spends his winnings on beer for the group. Ahleqs and Melaina put some money on other fights (you aren’t allowed to bet on your friends); Ahleqs places his bet and slides some additional silver over to the man with a meaningful look, and has to have it all explained to him before he then places 50 gold on one of the fighters.

Melaina backs all duds and loses her money. (Matthew, OOC: “Don’t worry, we can commit some crimes.”)

We let Melaina take the lead on planning the crimes; Ahleqs is only along to make up the numbers, Galloway is keen to see a master thief in action and Gunna is somewhat out of his depth when it comes to land crimes.

She decides on a mark - a noble.

Gunna: “I can do any punching.”

Melaina: “No no - we’re going to be subtle.”

Gunna: “… Punch him from behind?”

We all put 60gp into a kitty for equipment and such. Ahleqs gets a nat20 on his Stealth, and forgets that *he’s* there for a bit. (Randomly, we are all proficient in stealth.)

We do the heist over the next several days; we attain a partial success, meaning we get half our intended payout - this equates to 100gp each. It’s pretty hairy at some points and we get close to getting caught, but none of us end up in jail. Call that a win!

When we re-enter the Dagger, we are presented with a note written in Thieves’ Cant. Only Melaina can read it; it’s asking for a meeting in the place where we slew the flesh ripper. Everyone in the Dagger has heard about the flesh ripper, including Galloway, whose interest in immediately piqued.

The note is from Shanks, who has been setting up a guild in the sewers. Beth, the barmaid who gave us the note, says that Jirr will know how to contact Shanks. She will be expecting us at our earliest convenience. Galloway asks about the flesh ripper; it is part of the reason he wants to pal around with this group for a while. Ahleqs feels a bit queasy just thinking about it, so Melaina explains what happened.

She said it was ‘pretty cool’; Galloway is blown away by her nonchalance. Ahleqs says it was not cool. Not cool at all.

(Matthew and Baby Wee Jock go on a bedtime mission; we wish them luck.)

We get quickly to the nice part of the sewer, but have to make CON saves for the general grossness of the rest of it. (Gunna is eating while we’re down here, completely unbothered.) Galloway grumbles as the temperature goes down but is otherwise not too poorly affected by the place. Ahleqs is milk-white but keeps his lunch; Melaina throws up.

As we approach this part of the sewer, all the bones that were here last time are gone. There are torches on the wall, and two shadowy figures approach - they are on guard. They greet us and say that Shanks has been expecting us.

Galloway is delighted to find out Shanks is a tiefling.

Galloway, grinning, with a wink: “Alright gorgeous.”

He gets a nat 20 on his persuasion check; Shanks blushes and looks at the floor. (Awesome.)

We lose Ahleqs; the DM zips him to us. (The guards sent him the wrong way and he forgot to light his mouse.)

Shanks asks how the party got on in Candlekeep; Gunna and Galloway both shrug. Where are the rest of them? They’re doing homework, they tell her.

She has a job that made her think of us, do we want the details before we accept or decline? Sure, why not. She says we should start with business and hands Melaina a bag of 100 gold.

Her outfit have remained unnoticed so far by guards and rival guilds. Nice! Other news is mixed; they got wind of a secret stash on the other side of the city; it once belonged to a mage of some sort. She sent agents there, most was plundered, but they found an enormous statue that turned out to be a golem. Someone had a bright idea to bring it back here. It was only inactive, and has since woken up; no-one is injured fortunately, but they had to shut it away before it did hurt someone.

They don’t want to destroy it outright, as it could be useful for security. They have the control rod, but they need to shut it down without destroying it in order to reset it. If we pulverise it, that should work.

Galloway introduces himself using his full name (Gilukhaipan yn Basam al Maharajid) and a deep bow, still flirting, and asks what she means by ‘pulverise’.

If we can knock it beyond a health threshold it should shut down. Ahleqs knows a little about golems; the different forms are different levels of deadly. It takes a lot of magic to create a golem, and they come in various forms. He would know which form this one is by looking.

Clay, stone, flesh and iron are the types. Clay is the weakest, and iron is the strongest; Ahleqs is praying for not-flesh which would be gross. Shanks says it is made of metal; oh, shit.

“Ohhh… this is bad, you guys.”

We are all up for some punchin'; Ahleqs agrees reluctantly, “for Mr. Pickles.”

We retroactively buy some potions and arrows, and Shanks gives us a few more potions. She leads us to the golem. It’s in an unused store room, Shanks’ agents have managed to lock it in.

She’s not asking us to risk our lives; if we have to destroy it, it’s no loss. Ahleqs lights his mouse.

Shanks will open the door and let us in. If we want out, we have to pound on the doors three times and they’ll get us out again.

Ahleqs casts Mage Armor. Gunna charges, then waits his turn. Ahleqs is up first; he casts Haste on Galloway, who is delighted.

The golem runs up to Gunna and makes two melee attacks on him. 28 hits. (fuck.) 30 also hits. (double fuck.) It does 41 total damage to him. Well… Fuck.

(BWJ has kicked off because Matthew and Sophie’s food has turned up; he’s apparently extremely angry because he can’t eat solids yet. I believe he gets that ability at level 2.) Melaina can’t hide, so she casts Minor Illusion and conjures an image of some barrels conveniently placed right in front of her and hides behind them.

Gunna is going to bonus action Hunter’s Mark. (That’s right bitches, he multiclassed.) He attacks; 18 DOES NOT HIT. Well, fuck.

He rolls a nat20 and manages to score triple damage with his longsword.

Galloway runs up to flank with Gunna, grinning like a madman, takes three attacks at advantage and gets a nat20, then takes Patient Defense.

Ahleqs casts Fireball, managing to place it so it doesn’t hit either of the flanked fighters. It takes the 27 damage and uses it to heal itself; Well, fuck me running.

It steps to one side, dodging Galloway’s attack of opportunity, and does Poison Breath at Gunna and Galloway; Galloway is now down to 8HP.

Melaina hits with her shot, annoyed that she rolled high enough that she could have used Sharpshooter. (Sophie blames Matthew for encouraging her to take the Sharpshooter off.) Gunna makes a CON save for his Hunter’s Mark and actually makes it with a 25.

Gunna’s confidence has been a little dented, but he rallies and makes another attack. 13 misses. 11 also misses.

Galloway moves and does a bunch of damage, and takes a potion, and does Patient Defense again.

Ahleqs does another fireball but uses a transmuter’s stone to change the damage type to lightning. He hits and it takes all 37 points of damage. The golem no longer likes him. Ahleqs backs away from it.

Melaina, just behind him: “Would you like to hide behind my barrel?”

It does another multi-attack - 16 misses Gunna. Because it misses, he hits it back. He crits! There is some calculation, taking Hunter’s Mark into account; it comes out to 36 total damage. Woof.

It was going to turn and swing at Galloway but it finds Gunna’s actions very rude so it swings at him again instead. It misses again; sadly for him, he has used his reaction now so he can’t do that again, but he’ll take the miss.

Melaina risks it for the biscuit and puts Sharpshooter back on - but misses this time. (Sophie blames Matthew again.)

Gunna manages to make it drop its sword, hooray! He uses Second Wind to regain some hp.

Galloway does some punching, hits once, fails at a Stunning Strike, and is sick a bit from the poison damage. He does Patient Defense again.

Ahleqs does another Lightning Ball, this time at level 3. It fails the save and takes 23 lightning damage. He makes the noise of the spell with his mouth in addition to the noise it actually makes; it’s part of the casting, he tells us.

The golem slams at Gunna twice - 30 hits for 26 damage. He loses Concentration on Hunter’s Mark. It hits him again with a 31. Gunna goes down…

Melaina misses with her attack, but hides successfully. Gunna makes a death save - a success.

Galloway manages to impose an effect on the golem - it can’t take reactions until the end of his next turn. He uses this to move away, and Ahleqs Lightningballs it again for 24 damage.

It’s looking shabby, the DM informs us. A relief, for sure.

It doesn’t get its poison breath back, but it runs straight at Ahleqs who lets out the worst scream any of us have ever heard. 25 very nearly obliterates his AC for 24 damage. 32 also hits him, for 19 damage.

Melaina hits for 22 damage. Gunna succeeds a death save.

Galloway hits the golem with his Darkness spell, inadvertently putting Simon out.

Ahleqs casts Burning Hands at level 2 on the place where he last saw the golem, but misses. It hits him and takes him out.

The golem blunders through the dark and finds Melaina, attacking her and hitting. (Galloway is quietly horrified. He doubts he's making a good impression here.)

Gunna rolls a nat1 on his death save; he’s at two successes and two fails. Next round... We might be saying a swift goodbye to our newly returned pirate.

Some stuff happens and Galloway goes down, but Melaina manages to bring Ahleqs back up.

Gunna rolls what could be his final death save -

And I shit you not, it is a natural twenty.

Matthew, laughing with what sounds like equal parts relief and disbelief: “That was amazeballs.”

Gunna pops back up and gets in range of the golem, and twats it. He casts Hunter’s Mark on it again for the funsies. First attack misses - and the second one hits!

It has to make a STR save - it gets a 12, and is knocked prone. Sad really, because it is dead before it hits the floor. How de do dis! (Bearing in mind we can’t break it - Shanks still wants to reset it and use it.) He sweeps its legs out from underneath it, and the lights go out in its eyes as it hits the deck.

Gunna starts cackling madly, barely conscious and on his feet. He runs to Ahleqs and hugs him - forgetting that Ahleqs can’t see, and assumes he’s being attacked.

The door swings open and Shanks comes to take us back. Galloway, now the only KO'd party member, is put in a bed to recover. Ahleqs’ token resists being put in a room, for some reason, so there’s some faffing while Joe sorts that out.

We defeated an iron golem between the four of us; those are CR16 so that’s 15,000XP. We level up, and the others, who are not here, do not.

(Eheheheheh.)

Shanks is delighted; she’s had the golem brought back to the main hideout, and we can go back to the Dripping Dagger.

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 54, Nov 20, 2021: The Return of Timothy P. Fuckapple

We escaped back into the Underdark, and any potions used last time (non-canonical fight!) are returned. We may long rest now!

Joe has seen the first three episodes of Wheel of Time, and he says it’s good. High praise indeed.

I take Melaina until Sophie arrives, and Matthew takes Gideon. So we had a book written in Infernal, yes?

Everyone but Ahleqs: “Hey!”

Ahleqs: “… That’s fair.”

Aardvack wants to ask Olius what book he was down here looking for. He is in and out of a catatonic state, and will only sometimes respond to Tarragon.

Tarragon asks him if he remembers why he came down here; “… Books.” is the only response she can get. He covered his head when Ahleqs and Ardvack opened the grimoire, but doesn’t seem especially interested in it. We were asked to find him, and if possible, find the book he was looking for. But it seems that Ava found him first.

Perhaps the grimoire would do, if we can't find the book Olius was looking for…? We think it might satisfy the guys at Candlekeep.

We have to go back a different route, but we are heading for Candlekeep. Once we near the Keep, we will be teleported back up. Melaina makes a Survival check aided by Tarragon’s Guidance spell, and we get a 19. Ahleqs rolls an Encounter die, and we are not bothered on our way back by the denizens of the Underdark. Yay!

Ahleqs hands Aardvack back the mask that Kessler made him; he offers it between thumb and forefinger. It is accepted in similar manner.

We took about three days to get here; we travel for two days back with no incident. We find ourselves in an area with shallow water; Ahleqs casts Mage Armor. He still screams as he casts it, but he doesn’t need to be crying now so that’s progress.

Tarragon finds some weeds that she thinks could be made into healing poultices. She pulls enough for 3 recipes.

We proceed through the cave; Tarragon casts Pass Without Trace. As we round the corner we see a beam of yellow light, just pulsing and glowing. Ahleqs would have to get closer to it to do an Arcana check; he does so, reluctantly. He gives it a bloody good looking at, as Ardvack steps back and suggests the same to Carl. Ahleqs rolls a 12 - a split second before everything goes blindingly white, he recognises it as a variation on a Fireball spell.

“Ah, yeah. That’s right within my wheelhouse," he says as he takes a pile of fire damage.

He stops drops and rolls. Melaina passes her Dex save and takes no damage thanks to Evasion; Tarragon just passes and takes half for 19 damage. Then we roll initiative…

There’s a creepy bald guy and something that looks like Kessler in her armour but big and tall. Hmm.

The bald, robed guy says he would have thought that would have killed at least one of us. Either way, he says he can’t allow us to return to the Keep. He does Cone of Cold at Melaina, Ahleqs and Tarragon who are all clumped together, and we all fail our Con saves.

Ahleqs uses ToC to get advantage and still fails, and casts Levitate on his now unconscious body.

Kessler casts Spare the Dying on him. (Duncan, OOC: “Awww!”)

Aardvack casts Life Transference, giving Ahleqs 48 HP and coughing up a little bit of blood.

Melaina runs, shoots (and hits) and then hides, so she is hidden for the rest of the round. Tarragon crits with Thorn Whip, causing Baldy to have Disadvantage against her spells for 4 rounds, woo! She notices when Melaina hit Baldy, his robot got hurt.

Ahleqs then notices that some of the scratches on the robot disappear. Hmm.

Ahleqs unleashes Fireball in a game of “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours”. It’s a level 4, “Because he seems like a wrong’un.” Baldy makes his save. Ahleqs can stop Levitating if he wants to; he elects not to do so.

Gideon casts Mirror Image. (Smart.)

Carl does a long, winding half circle around behind the the robit, to flank with Gideon. He gets a natty 20! The robit makes his save, so he is not stunned. Carl forces a contested Str check, which the robit loses and is grappled. Carl bites him! 23 hits, for 3 piercing damage with his ‘Carl-bites-it’.

Baldy busts out a lightning bolt on Ahleqs and Kessler. Kessler is hoping for an upgrade as a result of the lightning boost; it’s not likely. Mina points out that Ahleqs is in the air and he can’t hit both of them; he does Cone of Cold instead. Ahleqs makes his save with ToC, taking 14 damage; Kessler takes the full 29.

Kessler runs up and punches Baldy with her Thunder Gauntlets. (Ahleqs’ height changes by 1d10 inches; he grows, by four.) Kessler punches again; both hit.

Tarragon hits Baldy with Call Lightning; Carl and Gideon both notice that it seems to hit the robit as well. She backs up and takes another potion.

The robit nat 20s his Str check while Carl crit-fails his, and throws the zombie off his back. It rushes up and slots Melaina in the chops. (Me, aghast, OOC: “But I hid!” Joe, cackling: "I know.") He misses though, so it’s all good.

DM: “Ahleqs.”

Ahleqs: “No.”

He ponders just doing another Fireball. “Hmm. Yeah, I’ll just do another Fireball.” He places it so it won’t hit Kessler. DM: “Well that’s no fun, is it.”

(Joe transfers custody of the Grease Wizard to Sophie, who has just arrived. Matthew’s computer is, as usual, struggling. There is a short delay while Matthew and Sophie juggle Melaina, Gideon, Aardvack, Carl, and the baby.) Gideon hits him with Ray of Enfeeblement, which hits. Yeah!

Carl misses with a Slam attack and is furious.

Baldy casts Fire Shield, turning it into a Chill Shield to protect against the Fireballs Ahleqs keeps casting on him. Kessler punches him in the face, and misses. She punches again and hits; the Chill Shield activates so she uses her reaction to cast Absorb Elements.

Aardvack steps away from the clump of Melaina, Carl and the robit, and hits Baldsy with Blight.

(Duncan, OOC, impressed: “Ah, Blidget!”)

Joe’s computer signs him out of roll20 and into World Anvil; we wait while he signs back in to the game. (Me, OOC: “D&D is like substitute teachers right? If the DM doesn’t show up, you win?”)

He fails the save for Blidget, but transfers some of the damage to his robit. As a free action Aardvack flips him the bird, and as a bonus action he takes a potion.

Melaina has a robit all up in her business, but Wondrous Carl is there so she could Disengage if she wanted. She opts to stab it instead, at Advantage, as it’s flanked. 17 hits. 31 damage, with her Sneak Attack. Is her rapier magical? No, but it’s really sharp. (It doesn’t have to be magical anyway, it turns out.) She Disengages for free and retreats.

Tarragon hits again with her Call Lightning spell, still up. Ten damage, and he transfers some to the robit. The robit moves, and Carl gets an Attack of Opportunity. He misses.

The robit moves southwards, and releases its stored spell. Which is, naturally, Fireball. Kessler, Carl, Gideon and Aardvack all make a Dex save. Gideon crit-fails. Sophie as Gideon, OOC: “Shit! I mean, ‘bother’.” Kessler is the only one to make the save, taking a ‘friendly little cuddle of 18 fire damage.’ The others take the full 37. Aardvack is fast approaching his favourite hit point.

Does the robit look at all smashed up? Yes, it looks pretty rough. Ahleqs opts for a lovely Shatter spell. Baldy says no, quite emphatically, by casting Counterspell. Shatter fizzles.

Ahleqs, put out: “How dare you.”

Grease Wizard, true to form, casts Grease. The robit fails the save and falls prone. Gideon retreats, jubilant.

Carl has Advantage on the robit now as it’s prone. (He was going to take a run-up.) 15 misses. Baldy Misty Steps to Aardvack and Shocking Grasps him. 29 hits, for 14 damage, and Aardvack crumples to the ground, unconscious. Matthew, OOC: “You know in cartoons when someone gets electrocuted and you see their skeleton?”

Kessler Thunder Gauntlets the robit and smashes it. Yeah!

(Baby Wee Jock has hiccups. He hates it.)

Aardvack rolls a death save - a success. Then he stands up.

All of us: “You what?”

DM: “You rotten twisted little shit!”

Ardvack casts Vampiric Touch at Adv rolling TWO nat 20s, Baldy Counterspells it, Ahleqs Counterspells the Counterspell so the Vampiric Touch works. He takes 4d6 necrotic damage, at max damage, so that’s 24, and Aardvack gets the how-de-do-dis! Aardvack sucks the life out of him, and it’s the second worst thing any of us have seen after watching Ava peel Aardvack’s face off.

There’s a little moment of awkward silence; some of us are sick in our mouths.

DM: “He was about to teleport out, you dirty, murdering bastards.”

Kessler wants to look at the robit. It’s broken; she strips it for parts. (She can actually do that!)

Aardvack sits down and stares at his hands. He has no face so we can’t tell his expression. Tarragon runs to check on Olius; he is fine.

Ahleqs lets a rope down, and Carl pulls him along like a helium balloon until Levitate wears off. (He feels that Carl might be remembering something from his childhood.)

Melaina leads us back to the Teleportation circle: we hear a voice telling us to step into the circle to be teleported back.

We appear back in Candlekeep in cells. What?

A member of the Avowed appears. He says they can’t be too careful; things have been unusual during our absence. Has anyone seen Aardvack? He has been back here and broken into the vaults.

Um... what?

That bitch! It’s bloody Ava isn’t it!

Aardvack Disguises Self into Timothy P Fuckapple.

“Is one of you Ahleqs?” Ahleqs pretends to be asleep. Timothy points him out. Luckily, Mr Pickles appears to vouch for him.

“Did you know your friend Aardvack was going to break into the vaults?” Mr Pickles asks Ahleqs. Ahleqs points out that we did a task so we would be allowed to go into the vaults. Why would Aardvack need to break in?

Mr Pickles tells us that Aardvack arrived back before the rest of us, broke into the vaults, then got crazy drunk and was running around Candlekeep naked -

Ahleqs remembers that Aardvack has had his face stolen, and tells Mr Pickles about it in a whisper.

“Where is the real Aardvack now?” Mr Pickles asks.

Ahleqs, looking at Timothy, suddenly worried: “I don’t know!” He asks Mr Pickles to come closer. Mr Pickles does so. Ahleqs points out Timothy P Fuckapple.

Mr Pickles vouches for Ahleqs and the bars on his cell disappear.

Kessler offers her help investigating the Aadrvack situation, as a former officer; Mr Pickles corroborates and Kessler is freed. There are some persuasion checks, and we are all let out except both the No-Face McGraws.

Ahleqs used ToC to get advantage on his persuasion roll, and spends the next minute 'having a moment'. Mr Pickles slaps him and tells him to snap out of it. Ahleqs casts Magic Missile. Mr Pickles puts him back in his cell and raises the bars. He folds his little arms and watches, irritated. Four flumphs appear. “Sorry!” Ahleqs blows bubbles instead of talking. Then regains a spell slot. Then regains five HP at the start of each of his turns. Another magic missile. As the finale, his hair falls out again.

Mr Pickles raises his eyebrows. “Done?”

Ahleqs is on his hands and knees, panting and dribbling. He tries to say yes, but more bubbles come out. Mr Pickles sighs and gives him a handkerchief.

Aardvack has used the distraction to tell Carl to be cool; they will get out of this. Mr Pickles approaches him and asks his name.

(In thick east London accent) “Timothy P Fuckapple. Gentleman, scholar. and - well. Never you mind.”

They are released and led directly to the Necessarium.

Mr Pickles explains that after Aardvack’s rampage, he was put in a cell but then escaped. As a result, Candlekeep’s gates are closed for the first time in years.

We are told that we can borrow a book instead of having a copy. If we want to stay for our ten-day we can, but it might end up being longer than that as the Keep has been shut down. Kessler suggests staying to look for Ava, but she is nowhere in the Keep. The Avowed don’t understand how she has penetrated the security.

(A horrible thought occurs. What if Olius came back, and we rescued Ava…?

No - she took his face, and therefore all his knowledge. Fuck!)

Tarragon is given access to the book she was looking for, to maybe save her sister. She takes it, and goes to a couch to sit and have a look at it.

The book about the Shadow Weave can be sent to Waterdeep with some of the Avowed, for the party to look at it there. They can stay here if they want, but it might be longer than they would like before they can leave.

Mr Pickles will have the book transported to Waterdeep, to the Tower for us.

He also tells us that we’ve had a message from Filiare - a friend of ours has returned and is waiting for us in the Dripping Dagger. A handsome face, not an ill-fitting one. A sea captain? (Gunna!)

Mr Pickles says the Shadow Weave situation is very important. Ahleqs is inclined to do whatever he says.

Aardvack, under his breath: “… Spineless.”

Tarragon says she would like to stay here with the book, and then maybe go and help her sister. The others are torn. Ahleqs wants to maybe help her.

Aardvack is also torn; he wants access to the books, but he has business in Waterdeep. He approaches Mr Pickles, furious.

“You, or your organisation, owes me a ten-day. I will be back to claim it.”

Mr Pickles rolls onto his back laughing and coughing up little puffs of smoke from his pipe. Aardvack stalks off in a huff.

Tarragon tells the others to go on ahead to Waterdeep, and she will catch up with them when she can. Maybe once they’ve looked at the book Candlekeep will be open again and they can come back.

The Avowed take the others to the courtyard to the teleportation circle, and send them back to Waterdeep. Do any of them know the spell Heal, Aardvack wants to know?

Yes, they do, thank you very much.

There is a long silence. Aardvack stares at them, remembering their faces.

“Might I ask your name?”

“Yes. It’s Fuckapple.”

If Aardvack had lips, he would smirk at that.

Tarragon goes with them to the courtyard to say goodbye and ask them to say hi to Gunna for her. Aardvack wishes her luck with her sister; he sounds surprisingly genuine. She wishes him luck with his face.

We call it there as it’s getting late.

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 53a 6 Nov 2021 - "It rolled a seven, so dirty 20."

So to battle! This week we are fighting the monster Joe almost threw at us last week, before pulling it at the last minute because he thought it might obliterate us. So this should be fun. We are assured that this session is outside the canon of our adventures, and any deaths here do not count. I will be taking minimal notes, so I can concentrate on strategy.

Aaaaaand I’m an hour early, because their clocks have gone back and ours haven’t yet. Goddammit. See you in an hour…

Matthew recaps the last session for Mina, who hasn’t read the blog (smh…)

The balhannoth was CR11; whatever we’re fighting today is CR20. Not a typo. Okay! Joe says we can use whatever potions etc but make a note of whatever we have because we can get them all back after this. I take a screenshot; Matthew announces that he will do no such thing, but will commit his inventory to memory.

Ahleqs screams Mage Armor. Carl wiggles his fingers in the black pool at the far end of the room, and apparently that will do it - we roll initiative.

Oh shit it’s a Nightwalker -

It reduces Tarragon’s max HP to 44, and that’s just the first thing it does. Then it does something called Finger of Doom on Kessler, but thanks to some Artificer shit she succeeds on the roll and is immune to that attack for 24 hours.

Ahleqs unleashes a Fireball; it makes the save and is also fire resistant, so it takes a quarter of the damage. He hurts Carl by accident way more.

Matthew: "Can it make a Constitution save?"

Joe: "It can… It rolled a seven, so dirty twenty."

All of us, immediately: "GLFKGDFLAHJFGLKHJLSD JOE WhAT THE FuCK"

Melaina hides and shoots, and Kessler retreats and shoots.

Matthew: "Carl casts Wish."

(Carl does not cast Wish.)

(Carl misses his attack with a nat 1, moves away, and takes an attack of opportunity; he fails his CON save and has his hp max reduced by 24.)

Gideon goes for a Phantasmal Killer; it makes the save and takes no damage.

Tarragon retreats, and does Call Lightning on it; it fails the save, and takes twelve Lightning damage, which it halves. Tarragon hopes it can’t see the trail of gnome pee that she left behind her as she ran. (She is starting to understand why Ahleqs does that.)

It does Enervating Focus on Carl, reducing him to 0hp, spreading his soul like fine paté on a cracker, and does Life Eater - Carl is dead and can’t be revived by anything other than a Wish spell. Well fuck.

It flies over and hits Kessler who can’t reaction Shield, because she already used her reaction to help Tarragon. She makes a CON save - nat 20! Her max HP is not reduced.

Ahleqs does Shatter.

Some more stuff happens that i didn’t write down on account of the fact that I was panicking. We are getting increasingly worried that we might not be able to beat this one. Kessler retreats, and Tarragon does the same. It advances on Aardvack. He does a thing that forces it to choose another target; it chooses Ahleqs.

Ahleqs: "Noooooo, though!"

He fails his CON save and has his HP max reduced by 26. (Then Matthew realises he couldn’t do that thing, so Ahleqs gets the HP back and Aardvack rolls his own CON save; a nat 1.)

It uses its Enervating Focus on Gideon; 25 damage and a CON save which he fails. 25 damage and HP max reduced.

Ahleqs tries cold damage, since everything else but Radiant seems to get halved and he can’t do Radiant. He does Fireball but makes the damage Cold damage (sorcerer perk). It fails the Dex save, but halves the damage to 16. He advances in a retrograde fashion to somewhere further away.

Admiral Pancakes returns to the ether.

Kessler shoots, misses, slams a potion and keeps running.

Gideon fails his CON save - he’s alive, but barely. He runs to find cover. Tarragon moves her Moonbeam; it makes the save again, and takes half damage. She runs for cover.

The nightwalker moves to hit Ahleqs and Melaina with the Enervating thing; Ahleqs gives himself advantage with Tides of Chaos and makes the save.

He does it again and fails the save, and casts Confusion centred on himself. Brilliant.

Aardvack goes invisible and moves. Melaina makes a CON save as she starts her turn within 30 feet of the thing. She takes 14 necrotic damage.

Gideon fails his CON save and is reduced to 0HP - and has his soul devoured. (We hear Kessler cackling.)

Tarragon is next, and she dies and has her soul devoured as well. Welp, goodnight everybody!

Ahleqs does another fireball which might kill Matthew’s second character as well. (He re-places it so it doesn’t.) He makes it poison damage just to see; the nightwalker doesn’t even roll a save for that as it’s immune to poison. He runs away, taking his cue from the cheese-eating surrender goblin.

Invisible Aardvack does Eldritch Blast at Advantage because he’s invisible - Onslaught. Max damage, and roll the damage dice again.

If we were playing it straight out of the book it would be dead, but Joe rolled for its HP so it’s not.

Matthew: “... So you mean the one time I would have killed it, I don’t?”

He is no longer invisible, so he crouches down. Melaina is out of its range, so she can hide and attack - she does that. 11 misses.

Sophie, OOC: “Shitsticks.”

She runs away and hides.

Kessler: “Well I can’t see anything - ”

Duncan, OOC, laughing: “You can see the exit!”

She flees - looking to see if she can see Aardvack on her way out to shoot him in the leg. She can’t see him so she just runs, and lives to goblin another day.

It flies into the room where Aardvack is crouching.

Matthew, OOC: “… Reaction shield?” He does a slow turn like in the movies where the character slowly realises that the monster is behind him. He makes a CON save - he’s getting close to his favourite hit point - and fails. It attacks again - he’s at 9 - and hits him for 29 damage and eats his soul.

Ahleqs and Melaina are the last ones standing. Ahleqs takes a healing potion, and does Eldritch Blast, using Tides of Chaos for advantage. 26 hits, 27 is a natty 20. 3 damage, then hits the crit table. Targeted Spell: Max damage and roll the dice again for 18 total. (He grows a beard of feathers.)

It’s looking wispy, Joe tells the remaining party members.

Melaina hides. Joe tells is that if she rolls well she might kill it; if she rolls poorly it might kill both of them. It’s her last arrow, and she rolls - a natural 20.

How de do dis!! If this had been canon, Ahleqs and Melaina would have received 12,500XP for that. But the rest of us would be dead, or otherwise gone. Still it was a jolly good laugh.

#dnd #campaign diary #thetradeway

[thetradeway]

Session 53, 30 Oct 2021: "We are not optimised for that."

So last we left off, we had escaped suspiciously easily from the face-stealing witch’s lair, with Olius Visk, hapless wizard (now faceless) in tow. Hmm. We had retraced our steps back as far as the Underdark beneath Candlekeep. Mina’s busy and Ed is ill, so we continue on without them.

We had not had a rest - well we had, but Joe almost killed us again so we need another one. We had just run away from Ava’s house with everything that wasn’t nailed down. As we went back through the portal into the Underdark, Aardvack decides to change some of the runes even though he doesn’t know what he’s doing, in hopes that if Ava uses it after us she might end up in the elemental plane of fire or something.

We no longer have the Drift Globe as it’s done its job, but we can retrace our steps to somewhere relatively safe-looking. Kessler casts Alarm as a ritual, but can only get some of the members of the party; she sets it so that our own people won’t set it off. Ahleqs scoots inside; he’s close to the fire now so he has to occasionally pat himself out.

Ahleqs and Carl take first watch, and nothing happens; Melaina can take her long rest perk (bloody elves…). Tarragon and Carl take second. Again, no incident. Melaina takes third watch with Carl. Still no incident. An eventless night!

(Joe has us roll to see what we would have fought; Quaggoths and Mind Flayers. That’s OK for players between levels 5 and ten, apparently. Duncan, OOC: “We are not optimised for that.”)

Olius is still rocking back and forth on his bed. “Singing. Singing in the night,” he says. Tarragon asks him who was singing. She rolls a nat 1 for persuasion; he has a thousand yard stare and doesn’t answer.

Tarragon casts Dispel Magic on the book - and rolls a WIS check. She successfully dispels the spell on it, to Aardvack’s ill-concealed surprise. What languages can he speak? Give him ten minutes and he can read any, but he’s fluent in common, draconic, dwarfish and elvish. It’s none of those, so he casts his Comprehend Languages.

(Ed pops in; he was making meatballs and forgot about the game. He’s feeling better.)

The spell on the book was Finger of Death; a bit on the nose, since the cover is made from a hand among other things. It would have killed Aardvack and raised him as a zombie; there would have been a certain poetry to that. Tarragon: "You're welcome." She makes breakfast.

The book is written in Infernal. Aardvack thinks it would take some deciphering, as it contains a lot of rambling and ranting. Ahleqs puts his hand up. “I can read Infernal. Because… Reasons.” Between the two of them, they can decipher it. They make notes on Aardvack’s fancy paper. Ahleqs is hoping it’s a book of dirty limericks.

(Matthew goes off to deal with the business end of the baby.)

(Ed can’t Gideon, as his name is greyed out. Is it because Sophie has control? Ed, OOC: “Release him!”)

Does everyone have their sound up, Joe wants to know. Oh, shit.

Aardvack makes a STR check at Disadvantage. 8; the book has been snatched from his lap. It hovers in the air - he hears a giggle that we recognise and he doesn’t (he wasn't with us last Halloween), and the book dances away from him. Tarragon casts Faerie Fire on the area around the book. She sees the outline of the doll in green glittery light. Melaina casts See Invisibility.

Ahleqs casts Eldritch Blast at the doll, at Advantage thanks to Faerie Fire. 14 is just a hit, 24 definitely is, for 9 Force damage altogether.

Joe, put out: “You monster.”

Aardvack does the same, for 19 total damage. He stands up and shouts “Come back with someone else’s book!”

Kessler shoots a crossbow bolt at it, and Gideon flings Acid Splash for a Dex save. It fails and takes some Acid damage. Melaina takes a shot with her bow as well. Joe thinks we’re escalating this; all the poor little doll did last time we met her was appear out of nowhere and try to stab us all with a kitchen knife.

Melaina does 21 damage. “Twatty doll!”

The giggling stops dead. “Fuckers!” she hisses.

We’re giving chase, yes? Yes we will run into this obvious trap. Did Ahleqs and Aardvack glean much from the book, they want to know? Mostly expletives and nastiness warning against reading the book without permission.

The doll runs away, and we follow. She makes for a passage and into a cavern full of ruins. Aardvack: “Quick, everyone split up!” We do not do that. The doll is giggling again by now. It runs off to the north.

Gideon finds a door; Tarragon and Kessler follow him. It’s warm here, and surprisingly clean. It feels strangely familiar to all of us; nostalgic. Suspicious. It feels like we’ve been here before. Can we do History checks? Yes. We do, but we can’t place this… place.

There’s a campsite further in the ruin.

This seems iffy. Ahleqs has half cover if he stands behind Gideon, right? He doesn’t know how to check for traps but he’s seen Melaina do it, so he does what he thinks she might do in this situation. 15 Investigation; not bad. What’s he investigating? The camp. The fire is burning and the tents are unoccupied, but they look really cosy and snuggly.

Ed, immediately, OOC: “Oh, I don’t trust that!”

Ahleqs investigates the fire; it’s not giving out any heat, and there is nothing in the tents but sleeping bags. It’s too perfect. Ahleqs shares his misgivings with us. Can he touch the tent? Yeah, but it doesn’t feel quite solid. Something’s up.

Tarragon hears in her head: “Sleep, little one! The tents are empty!” She spins on the spot, looking wildly around, but sees nothing. "Did you hear that?" she asks the others; they all look at each other. No, seems to be the consensus.

Ahleqs and Melaina investigate the gold; Gideon wants to leave.

21 would hit Kessler so she reaction-Shield’s, but 26 hits her even with that. She takes 8 Bludgeoning damage. She is grabbed and teleported. What??

“Goodbye, goblin!” Gideon calls, waving.

“Fuck you, dwarf!” he hears as she sails away. The rest of us see nothing but Kessler disappearing with a yelp. She finds herself in a room and is released; she finds a door that leads back to the others. She tells them what happened; Gideon decides this is attention seeking behaviour and ignores her - until he is grabbed as well. “Golly.”

He takes a bunch of damage, and then the thing disappears and releases him. We’re spread out; we should clump together for Initiative, Joe tells us. Yeah right; we didn’t come down in the last shower.

We roll Initiative where we bloody well are, after Gideon returns to us.

The thing grabs Ahleqs, hits him a bunch, lets him go and disappears. Ahleqs, shaking: “I hated it!”

Can Melaina see this thing, since she can see invisible things right now? Yes. She hides and shoots it. Well - she rolls 26 stealth and is informed that she is NOT hidden. What the fuck? She shoots it normally without Sharpshooter. 16 hits, for 13 piercing damage. No sneak attack damage on top.

Gideon casts Mirror Image. “Wa-bam! Now there are four Gideons.” He slams a Healing Potion as well. He puts the bottle away. “I’m old like that, I hoard things.”

There’s some waffle about 5e as opposed to 3.5; apparently if you took a healing potion that would double your current max HP, you would explode. It was a low level problem.

Ahleqs’ turn - he also slams a potion, takes the dodge action and is only crying very quietly.

Joe shows us the thing, for those of us who’ve seen it; it has spines on its tentacles so when it flails at us, it makes us all bleedy. Fun!

Gentleman Carl takes his turn. He sees nothing to attack, so he readies a zombie-style savaging.

Kessler readies a crossbow attack, and Tarragon a Thorn Whip. Aardvack goes invisible and does some moving around. “Quietly quietly… Aaaaaaand I’m done.”

He’s put himself right next to our new friend. Does he want the good news or the bad news?

M: “Let’s start with the good.”

J: “You’re invisible.”

M: “… Great.”

J: “The bad news is that even though you’re invisible it still knows you’re there.”

M: “… Ah.”

J, happily: “I think it’s just going to bitch-slap you four times; you don’t have a face, so there are much tastier meals around.”

It grapples him with the first hit, and continues to slap him around. Tarragon and Kessler both release their held actions when it appears; Tarragon misses but Kessler hits.

It continues to savage Aardvack, and then teleports him away.

Sophie returns from sorting the baby and asks what’s happened. Aardvack’s been savaged and teleported away, we tell her.

Melaina, deeply sarcastically: “Oh nooooo…”

Gideon goes and checks the place where it took him, in case it’s spirited Aardvack to the same place. “My intuition was right!” He cups his hands around his mouth. “Brother Charity, are you okay?”

Aardvack, shouting back: “Never better!”

Gideon, to himself: “Gosh, I’d better unleash my most powerful spell. Yup - we’re doin’ it. Wa-bam.”

He casts Phantasmal Killer, holy shit. It meets the save DC, however. “Aw, dammit.”

Joe: “If it makes you feel any better, Gideon, if it had failed, I would have had it use one of its legendary reactions to succeed instead.”

Gideon: “Right. I see. Well then, goodbye!” (He doesn’t really abandon us to our fate; after all, there are four of him right now.)

Ahleqs is up. A., reluctantly: “Again?” Can he hear sounds of chomping as it eats Aardvack? He gets a free Perception check - a 22. He heard Gideon talking to Aardvack who seemed to be somewhere to the south. He strolls in that direction, and has another potion. He readies Eldritch Blast, so if he sees it, in any capacity at all, he’ll hit it.

Did Carl hear Gideon shouting? With a ten Perception, yeah, just about. He dashes to get closer to Aardvack, but that’s his lot. Kessler moves but can’t see the thing, so holds a crossbow attack. Tarragon does the same, but holds another Thorn Whip.

Aardvack misses with his Vampiric Touch, somehow. It’s still grappling him. He uses the rest of his turn to continue to be eaten. Sarcastically: “At its leisure, of course. I wouldn’t want to rush it.”

It continues to batter him. 24 bludgeoning; “… I’ll walk it off.” He is tantalisingly nearly dead.

“I’m getting close to my favourite hit point but I’m not quite there yet.”

It Legendary-Action-Bites him. 23 hits for sure. Aardvack’s last word is: “… Yup.” 37 damage, and he’s out.

Well. Oh my.

Melaina heard the crunching of gristle and the splat of guts hitting the floor, and heads south. She readies another attack.

Gideon casts Thunderwave, but it makes the save. It still takes half damage, but it isn’t pushed. Bits of Aardvack are pushed, but strictly for flavour.

Ahleqs casts Shatter, at level 4 because he’s terrified. It fails the save - and uses its legendary action to succeed instead. It takes the opportunity to use another legendary action on the end of Ahleqs’ turn to vanish.

Carl is enraged by the Balhannoth’s disappearance. Does he have any healing potions that he could - ooh! “Carl will administer a Healing Potion to Aardvack.”

Kessler gets up high and holds a crossbow attack; Tarragon rushes down to find all the action. Aardvack, sarcastically: “Glad you could join us.”

Tarragon: “Shut up.”

Aardvack, looking down at himself: “… I think this bit’s meant to be on the inside.” He spends his turn putting things back in and sewing the holes shut. Then he stands and casts Shllsdgjlfh’lh’f;lhjsdh. If he were to prod the air ahead of him, would it meet with resistance…?

Yes, it would. Fuck.

Melaina takes nine slashing damage from the doll, who reappears behind her. Does 18 hit her as well? Um… Yes. Does Kessler see this happen? No, because the doll is directly in line behind Melaina to her. Me, OOC: “Okay. Well. That’s grand. Sorry Melaina.”

18 does not hit Kessler, but she gets off her readied action - and misses. Well shit. It does some more attacks, and only one needs a reaction Shield, but she bloody well does it. The rest of the attacks miss.

Kessler turns to see the Balhannoth behind her and tries to Thunder Gauntlet it - nat 1. Too much flourish - drop your weapon and make a DC14 Dex save. On a fail, you take the weapon’s normal damage. She fails, and takes 12 Thunder damage. She makes a second attack but, distracted, she misses. Dammit.

Melaina stabs at the doll but misses. She bonus-action-Disengages and moves away.

Gideon, on hearing that Kessler has done more damage to herself than to the monster: “Okay, well, chill out here then.” He moves around exploring, allowing Joe to shepherd him about “which may not be the best of choices.” He can’t do anything now that he’s moved but he’s here, so that counts for something.

Ahleqs, moving reluctantly back toward the main room and the Balhannoth: “Oh god… Oh god, I don’t like it.” He casts Burning Hands at it, at level 4, after some kerfuffle with the template. “Uuurghh, I hate it!” It’s a Dex save, which it fails. It uses its last legendary action to succeed.

Me, OOC and probably metagaming: “‘Last’, you say?”

The Balhannoth is looking ropey, we are told. Carl takes his turn, taking twenty minutes to turn around on Matthew’s ancient, creaky laptop.

(Last time Duncan ordered a pizza, it gave him some quite violent food poisoning; is it worth him risking it a second time…? All of us immediately: “No! What kind of questi- no!” Matthew, playing devil’s advocate: “Was it nice while you were eating it, though?”)

Carl gets up to the Balhannoth but can’t hit it this round. Kessler hits twice, very pleased; it vanishes in response. Carl loses his fucking mind when he sees it disappear.

Tarragon casts Cure Wounds on Aardvack at third level, and walks away without bothering to see if it did anything.

Aardvack can’t reach Ahleqs for a Cure Wounds, so he summons Admiral Pancakes to do it for him. He and Tarragon start squabbling (I can cast Shlksdgsdkgdghh for free so it’s more betterer, well I can hit harder with it, well I saved your life, well I healed you just now, well I can come back from the dead, well I already have, no you were brought back from the dead by a unicorn, well I still came back from the dead didn’t I, and on and on…), while the doll tries to stab Kessler. She reaction-Shields again.

The Balhannoth has a go, even using a legendary action to get another attack, and can’t hit her even with Advantage. The highest it manages is a 23. Kessler, smug: “Nope - and you just wasted your Legendary Action. Good job!”

Melaina natty 20s one of them - I’m not sure which - and gets the how-de-do-dis. Oh - on the Balhannoth. It deflates like a wet balloon. Yeah!

Ahleqs steps over Tarragon who is still squabbling with Aardvack, and does an Eldritch Blast at the doll. Should he do Tides of Chaos? Tarragon and Aardvack immediately take opposite sides in this debate.

He does just regular Eldritch Blast, and hits twice. “Eldritch… Blast! Woah. Thirteen points of damage. And it dies.”

Joe, immediately: “No it doesn’t. It just hisses at you.”

Gideon crit-fails his Chill Touch spell; Drawing a blank: You are unable to cast this spell for one minute. “Oh, I’ll live.”

Matthew, OOC: “Thank god it wasn’t Grease!”

Ed, OOC: “That straight up can’t happen with Grease.”

Carl is extremely frustrated with how this event has gone down. This is hard work for him, he moves at a slower pace than other people, generally. He didn’t get to lay one finger on the big bag of teeth and tentacles, so he takes his rage out on the doll.

Duncan, OOC: “Yes, go on, batter it!”

We wait for Matthew’s laptop to let him select Carl. He travels twenty feet, and can hit with Advantage - but the doll gets Advantage on him until his next turn. He slams and hits with his Zombie Grab attack, doing 8 Bludgeoning damage. As part of his bonus action he can bite it if he manages to grapple it. Contested Strength checks - and Carl wins. He bites the shit out of it. “What you see basically is a giant man assaulting a dolly.” Matthew presses the button; any minute now. And his computer turns itself off.

It was so near death, however, that Joe takes pity on Carl and lets him have the how-de-do-dis. Carl bites its head off, tears the body in half, and stamps on the bits.

We look around ourselves - the ruins look horrible, suddenly, in great contrast to how they looked when we arrived. The camp has disappeared, as has the gold. Booh. Well, not really surprising.

It didn’t even get to eat us. Well; it got to eat quite a lot of Aardvack.

Joe decides he will have us fight the thing he was going to have us fight in here, before he realised it was CR20. It won’t be canon, it’s just a one-shot for fun. Awesome! If we roll good and play tactically, we should be in with a chance, he thinks. Hmm. We’ll see...

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 53, 16 Oct 2021: "Something to do with a wet fairy. Got it."

No Duncan this week, and no Mina. We soldier on…

There is a circle of magical runes on the dais that Carl has found; it seems recently used, to the magic users. There is also a chest to the north of the cave, which we noticed earlier. Ahleqs looks at the runes; it’s some kind of teleportation circle. He thinks it seems as if the last person to use it didn’t close it down properly. He says that if we fed it raw magic, we might be able to reopen it.

Sophie goes to collect Chinese food, leaving Matthew in charge of five characters and a baby; he has a very brief conversation between all of them by himself.

There is a skeleton near the chest; it looks like it was stashed in a hurry and doesn’t look trapped. Melaina checks the lid to see if it’s locked, ready to dive out of the way if necessary. Thieves' Tools check - an 11, but it’s enough. The lock cracks open to reveal two objects in aged looking cloth - one appears to be some kind of potion in a bottle on a chain, the other is some kind of lantern that seems to be giving off some sort of magic.

Gideon offers to Identify them, and Tarragon has a look at the potion. She pops back to gnome form and staggers a little, as she has four HP. The potion is a Potion of Heroism. The lantern is a Ghost Lantern.

Gideon does not want the lantern - he shoves it at Melaina and retreats. Tarragon suggests giving Ahleqs the potion.

Aardvack takes a punt on the runes to see if he can read where the Teleportation Circle leads; nat 1. Tarragon sniggers. She takes a turn too, but can’t read them either. She Lesser Restoration’s herself to remove the curse, and her face transforms back to a pretty little gnomish one. She pokes her tongue out at Aardvack.

Aardvack snidely: “Did you do something with your hair?” She kicks his ankle.

Melaina gives Ahleqs the potion and then pickpockets it back.

Joe is feeling benevolent, so he says that here feels like a good place to have a long rest. We are all immediately suspicious. Aardvack suggests that Kessler puts her Alarm spell over the Teleportation circle in case something comes back the other way. Aardvack re-summons Admiral Pancakes.

Ed arrives and takes over Gideon again, suitably horrified when he finds out about the ghost lantern. We take long rests.

(Baby Wee Jock has a cold; he’s pissed off because he doesn’t understand what’s happening to him. He sneezed the other day and looked at Matthew as if he’d done it.)

Aardvack is dubious about teleporting out of here as we don’t know where we’re going, but he doesn’t want to be stuck in the Underdark on his own; Melaina offers him a sip of her Heroism potion.

Gideon recognises some of the runes; they’re a combination between Infernal and what looks like Giantish? He sees one that looks like the word for the Feywild, and another concerning water.

“Something to do with a wet fairy. Got it.”

The drift globe seemed to be leading us to this circle, so off we go. Ahleqs says if we all siphoned some of our magic into the runes we could reopen the circle. We all mark off a level 1 spell slot.

The runes glow red, and the portal opens in the dais. We can see it’s pouring with rain on the other side, and dark; it looks like swamp or forests. Tarragon likes forests, so she marches through. The Drift Globe zips straight through too.

Tarragon rolls an 8 for her nature check; she has no idea where we are, but something doesn’t feel right. Melaina agrees, with an 8 of her own.

(Tarragon: “hey, samesies!”)

We are in a swamp. It smells a bit untoward, and there’s a grotesque statue of a naked, contorted man. It’s some sort of old, weathered stone; Gideon takes a closer look with his stonecunning - a dirty 20. It’s very fine granite, and very old. It’s not dwarven because it’s too hideous, too finely crafted to be human, and too ugly to be elvish.

“It’s too good for humans and not good enough for dwarves.”

There are more islands connected by bridges, and ruined walls of an ancient building rising up out of the water. The drift globe is waiting for us over the nearest island.

Aardvack asks if it would be pertinent to cast the Alarm on the teleportation circle in case the face stealing witch follows us, but she does it as a ritual. Tarragon and Melaina scout a little way ahead, with good Stealth checks.

Aardvack, shouting: “Can you tell us anything about the glowing plants?”

Tarragon, burying her face in her hands: “… Oh god.”

There is light emanating from strange glowing plants on the islands. Tarragon knows they are enspelled in some way; they’re not naturally magic.

There is some manner of shack to the north, with light coming from the windows:

Smoke starts rising from the ground at Ardvack’s shout, and starts to form figures:

As soon as Gideon sees the ghosts, he freezes with fear. He chooses to sit out his surprise round.

Tarragon misses with her Thorn Whip and swears under her breath in Gnomish; behind her, Carl gasps.

Carl, Aadrvack and Kessler all make WIS saves - most fall victim to the Whispers of Madness attack except Carl who is dead and therefore immune.

Tarragon Moonbeams one but misses; it does a Maddening Touch on her.

Tarragon: “Creepy!”

Gideon is still shaking in his boots, so he misses his turn.

Now they do Howling Babble, leaving Kessler stunned and unable to take a turn.

Aardvack casts Divine Blast of an Eldritch Nature at the closest of the allips (For that is they, not ghosts.) A miss and a hit, for 5 damage.

Carl crits and does triple damage with his Slam attack. Noice. He then points away from all of us; he’s telling the ghosts to go away.

Melaina is hidden and also crits on the same ghost for 46 damage and obliterates it; Carl stares at his pointing finger in amazement. Did he just tell it off to death??

They do Whispers of Madness again. In our heads we hear, “We didn’t know we had so much blood. She took it all.” Gideon fails the save and is forced to make a melee attack on Carl - he swings his tankard in one pudgy fist and hits him with a 19.

“It wasn’t me, it was the demons!”

Tarragon cackles as her Moonbeam does some damage this time.

“When there’s no blood left, your veins grate,” the allip whispers to her, and does 16 psychic damage.

Gideon screws his courage to the sticking place and blasts them to the next dimension. Hopefully they don’t like fire. He throws out an Aganazzar’s Scorcher at the one attacking Tarragon. It turns out that they’re resistant to fire. Well shit.

Kessler hits twice with her crossbow; the allip shudders. She does her Defensive Field thing for 7 temp HP.

The one nearest Tarragon reaches out to her again and does another 16 damage. “Trust me, it’s better if I kill you than if she does it.” Tarragon is starting to get a little nervous now.

Aardvack does Life Transference on Tarragon and gives her 22HP back. Does she know where it came from?

Matthew, OOC: “It’s like no other healing magic in the world; it makes you feel sick.”

Me, also OOC: “So I’m pretty sure it’s from you, then.”

Carl pulls out a potion and pours it on the ghost next to Tarragon - it’s a vial of Holy water. The thing howls - it didn’t like that. Still though, it doesn’t acknowledge Carl at all; it’s as if he isn’t there.

Ahleqs screams Mage Armour - or maybe Mage Hand, and uses it to cover his own eyes. No, actually he does an Eldritch Blast.

Melaina shoots and hits, and smears some mud on her cheeks while disappearing into the undergrowth.

Aardvack hears a voice as he is attacked - “I see you’ve met her before.” So it IS Ava they're talking about. It has to make a WIS save as it attacks him - it fails, so he regrets to inform it that it has to choose another target or risk losing the attack. It changes its mind and reaches for Gideon instead, hitting him for 18 psychic damage.

“She’ll have fun with you,” it tells him.

Tarragon Greater Shlsfgjsldghlhkjbhhs, and hits the thing for 12 bludgeoning. It does as much damage as she was hoping - it felt almost solid as her quarterstaff connects.

It sex thumbs her face. It misses, but she throws up in her mouth anyway.

Gideon makes a new plan. He is going to fight fire with fire - or undead with undead, rather, and summons Rusty. He wills him to swing away at the ghost attacking him.

Ed, clicking buttons: “Wa-bam. Does that do anything?” 6 does not, unfortunately. “Crumbs!”

Kessler hits twice more with her crossbow; the thing turns its gaze on her. She backs up.

Aardvack, Kessler and Ahleqs all make WIS saves and roll high. Joe, annoyed: “Damn you all.” We take no damage.

Aardvack pours more Holy Water on the one nearest him. 17 hits, for 6 Radiant damage. “She’ll be back for you, you know,” it says in his head.

(Angus tries to stand on baby Wee Jock; they’re going to have to duke it out for superiority.)

Melaina gets a how-de-do-dis! “It just sort of fizzles out.” It makes a horrible screech as it evaporates.

24 to hit Gideon. It grabs him by the face. “You seem scared, but not scared enough.”

Tarragon smashes her allip into nothing, and advances on the next one.

Gideon, is a spectacular display of courage, leaps onto an allip and Gideon’s Fucking Awesome Shocking Grasps it. He is very annoyed to discover it does less damage than he would like. He retreats slightly sheepishly.

“Rusty, give the finishing blow!”

“Okay. boss,” drawls Rusty, and attacks. He misses.

Gideon, shaking is head: “Goddammit Rusty. He’s very good when he applies himself, he just needs to concentrate.”

Kessler hits twice; it howls, and its smoky body starts to look more translucent.

Aardvack does some more Holy Blasting, hitting once and missing once for 6 total damage.

Carl wades into the mire, ignoring the bridge to get to his target. He critically fumbles, imposing disadvantage on himself on all attack rolls until he hits something. He kicks at the water in frustration and disappointment.

Ahleqs does ten damage with Eldritch Blast, hitting once and crit failing. He must re-roll the attack against an ally within ten feet. He rolls for it, and hits Carl. He crit fails again, and teleports 30 feet in a random direction. He finds himself in the water.

Melaina ducks behind an arse-cheek of the statue, and shoots at the last remaining allip, but misses.

It reaches out at Tarragon, who is starting to feel a little put-upon by all these handsy ghosts. She swings her quarterstaff up between its legs, and it screeches even more high-pitched than usual before evaporating.

In our heads we all hear, “You should have let us kill you.”

Carl advances on Gideon, who has just smashed him with a tankard - and pats him on the shoulder.

The drift globe is hovering patiently outside what we now know to be the face-stealing hag’s cottage. Oh, good.

Aardvack grudgingly heals Tarragon and Kessler; Tarragon reluctantly heals him back. She only rolls 6 in spite of using a higher level slot; Aardvack sniggers. “Good effort.”

The cottage is built into a tree stump.

Joe: “See, it looks all cosy and nice!”

Ed immediately: “Does it?”

With no better plan than just climb up the ladder and wreck her shit, we climb up the ladder and wreck her shit.

Aardvack goes first and pushes open the door. It opens; there is a fire in the hearth and a cauldron suspended over it. There is a large table, an alchemy station and lots of drying herbs, bookshelves, and a little walled off area to the right. He sees no plush cushion for his face to sit on, and is suitably miffed. Nothing terrible happens to him, however.

Aardvack’s shoulders drop a bit. He inhales deeply, lifts his head and steps into the room.

It smells like herbs, but none he’s familiar with. There are some splashes of blood near the fireplace, but it could definitely be worse in here. Tarragon joins him, pushing past him into the cottage.

“What are you doing? Get out of the way.”

Aardvack takes all Ava's books, in a move motivated purely by spite.

Oh wait - Melaina has a lantern of seeing invisible things!

The table next to Tarragon is covered with parchments and a bunch of herbs - most of the notes are about fairly standard concoctions but she finds two new ones - Congealed Tincture and Inferno Leaves. She is especially pleased with that second one.

Aardvack finds a shelf full of books on chemical reagents. He Investigates them and finds the formulae for Potion of Greater Healing and Thunderstone. He can choose whether to share this with Kessler; he himself does not have the ability to use them. He keeps them to himself.

(Ed peaces out; he’s very tired.)

It looks like blood in the cauldron, as Aardvack peers in. It might be black pudding…? It’s not very big; even Aardvack with his minus two strength mod can lift it, so he does, and takes it outside and pours it out over the balcony.

Melaina checks out the case Tarragon has found in the bedroom. It doesn’t seem trapped, so she unlocks it with ease. Inside there is a very exotic looking quill. She makes a Nature check - a dirty 20. She thinks it’s a cockatrice feather. There are also tiny vials of coloured inks in expensive looking jars.

Aardvack makes a check with his scroll scriber’s kit; he fails.

Melaina uses INT as her spell casting ability, right?

Melaina, smoothly: “Yes, I do everything with intelligence.” She makes an Intelligence check. The kit will allow someone to take half the time it would usually take to write out a spell scroll up to level 5. She can see Aardvack’s eyes popping out of his head as she explains this, so she gives it to him.

The drift globe is hovering next to a cage; there’s an iron-y smell in the air underneath the aroma of herbs, and there’s bits of gore in the cage.

“Is that the guy?” Tarragon wonders aloud. Has it just found the highest concentration of wizard that is left?

Aardvack looks up. Just in case. But there is nothing there except herbs, hanging up to dry. There are no obvious bits of body anywhere. How big is the cage? Person sized. There’s no-one in there, just a load of sticky blood on the floor. Could something invisible be in there? Tarragon reminds Melaina about her lantern.

She activates the light - it illuminates the whole cabin, but everything still looks the same. She keeps it on for a bit anyway. Aardvack finds some fancy schmancy paper; he takes it all.

Ahleqs is fairly certain that the drift globe, where it normally hangs steady in the air, it looks to be bobbing up and down. Tarragon lifts the carpet; there is a trap door.

“Aardvack, after you,” says Tarragon.

Aardvack looks at the floor, and his shoulders sag a bit. “Off we go, then.”

We go down a set of winding stone stairs through the stump of the tree.

Tarragon, Kessler and Melaina see torches on the walls of the tunnel we find ourselves in.

Tarragon: “Pass Without Trace?”

We make perception checks; those who score over 20 hear a familiar sound.

It’s the nursery rhyme from the haunted house, the one we found last Halloween… Is it that fucking creepy doll again? Aardvack, who wasn’t there, is the only one not dismayed. (Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.)

We didn’t kill it, did we? It ran away. Ah, fuck.

We make Stealth checks, with a plus ten, as we tiptoe along the passageway. We can hear water, as well as the creepy nursery rhyme.

Kessler checks for traps as we go; she’s fairly confident with a 28 that there is nothing. As we pass the pool, we notice black shapes writhing in it; it is lousy with leeches. Melaina and Tarragon are immediately disgusted. Aardvack mentions that they could be medical leeches.

The drift globe is starting to glow brighter - it has zipped off ahead of us and around the corner. We hear a low muttering; those who scored 15 or above hear a male voice and it sounds absolutely batshit crazy. It’s talking about seas of crimson, of blood.

Melaina sees a large pile of flesh and blood and bones, flayed human skin. The cage is rusted and covered in blood. There is a book holder and a book. Also another raised dais, but this one is drenched with blood. Behind it all is a pool with a waterfall flowing into it. It’s about the only thing in here not smeared with human gore.

We see no living people or creatures. We can’t see the drift globe, but we can see the light emanating from it at the north of the cave. We round the corner cautiously and enter the cave proper. The drift globe is hovering in front of a horrible cage, inside which is a kneeling figure which is muttering about rivers of blood. He has his hood up; it and the cloak are drenched in dried blood.

Behind Tarragon is a pile of bits of body and viscera; Aardvack points past her toward it and she turns, seeing it for the first time. She steps back, horrified. There are streaks of fat, severed muscle tissue, disconnected veins. Blood.

We make Perception checks. Gideon thinks he saw a little glassy pair of eyes, blink at him and disappear into the shadows. That fucking doll!

Melaina approaches the cage with the man in it. As she does so, the drift globe shines really really brightly, then lands in her hand and switches itself off. So this is Olius Visk, who we have been sent here to find. His face is covered in bandages, which are covered in fresh and dried blood.

Aardvack: “Oi, no-face! Snap! Are you a wizard? Do you know Ava?” The man flinches at the sound of the name. Aardvack makes a Medicine check; he’s clearly in some state of shock.

Melaina wants to have a go at the lock on the cage with her Thieves’ tools. 27; it falls open in her hands. “Do you want to come out? We’ll protect you!”

Aardvack thinks he’s in some sort of catatonic state. With a high enough medicine check someone might be able to bring him out of it. Tarragon has a go, putting her hands on his shoulders. She sits with him and coaxes him to take some of her healing herbs. If she sits with him for ten more minutes or so, she thinks she can bring him out of it.

Kessler takes a look at the book.

It is some kind of grimoire, and its emanating dark magic. It seems to have some kind of ward on it. Does anyone have Dispel Magic?

Sophie, excited: “Ooh! Ooh! One of my lot might have it.” She rifles through characters, but finds only Counterspell. Kessler thinks the ward prevents the book from being opened, not moved. We could take it and investigate it later.

Ahleqs makes a Perception check. It’s not very good. Joe: “Never mind!”

Olius, once he’s calmed down, will probably be content to follow us, Tarragon thinks. Aardvack takes a close look at him. With some good rolls, he deduces that the man is a magic caster of some sort. There are scabs around the holes where his eyes are. These are eyes that have seen some shit.

Aardvack takes off his own bandages. “It looks like we have a friend in common.”

The man removes his own mask, and starts to bleed again. Underneath the mask, he has no face. Aardvack Cure Woundses him, and the ruined flesh of his face knits itself together into a large scab. Aardvack gives him some rations, which he devours. He seems to want to stick close to Tarragon, and seems very keen to leave.

There is no sign of the book Visk was sent down here to retrieve. Carl makes a Perception check; a two.

If we can get Olius out of this cave and help him calm down a bit, he might be able to teleport us back out of wherever this place is. Tarragon takes his hand and starts to lead him back the way we came.

We leave it there this week, since we’re down so many, and since it’s obviously not going to be as easy as just walking out of here. We've clearly triggered the Halloween episode a bit early!

Aardvack wants to be the last out so he can cast Animate Dead and create a zombie in case Ava comes back.

We leave the cave, leave the swamp, and go back through the teleporter and back into the underdark, where we make camp.

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 52, 9 Oct 2021: “If you place the fireball in front of him, you’re not shooting him in the back.”

(Don't know why there's no title field today. Two titles for session 50, and none for this one. Evens out, I guess. Tumblr continues to be a functional website.)

It’s been a few weeks! That’s because… Sophie and Matthew had a baby!!! We welcome baby Wee Jock, level 1 Human (Class TBD) to the party. :)

Duncan is still on Chrome; we tell him to get Firefox. It’s much better on a Mac, and doesn’t report your every move to Google. This apparently means he has to grass himself up to Google, which sounds like a major time-sink.

Matthew: “Dear Google, I found some porn you don’t know about.”

Duncan: “Dear Matthew, it’s cute that you think we don’t know about that. Also, what the fuck is wrong with you.”

Looking back over the notes from last session, we were in the middle of an attack by trolls, which came up out of the water next to which we were camping.

Joe shows us a picture of them:

(Baby WJ has already learned how to flip the bird apparently, to his dad’s disappointment. He was looking forward to teaching him that.)

I take Kessler and Sophie takes Gideon, and we’re off. It’s Carl’s turn; he does a Slam attack and hits for 3 Bludgeoning. Melaina moves out of range and takes aim with her longbow - 18 hits. Only 19 damage; she is suitably disappointed.

Gideon makes a Nature check; does he know of anything else about trolls, these ones in particular, that might help us? Matthew as Gideon: “Let me, er, tickle the old grey cells here…” He knows they regenerate unless they take fire or acid damage. Also, the range on their poison attack is about five feet. “Tarragon! Retreat! Goblin… Stay where you are.”

Gideon flexes his nine fingers and aims for the one that isn’t in melee with Kessler and Tarragon with an Aganazzar’s Scorcher - forcing a DEX save. It fails and takes 8 Fire damage. Tarragon Cure Woundses Kessler and backs up.

Ahleqs has been quietly wailing the entire time (we barely even notice that any more. We’re in a fight, there’s that noise again. It sounds like the boiling of a kettle), but he wants to see how big his Burning Hands cone is. (That’s what she said. Title of your sex tape.) There’s some fuffling while we work out what button it is on a Mac to place a spell template without it snapping to the grid. He can get both trolls, yes! Woohoo! He casts it at second level. Another DEX save - does Carl’s grapple affect that? No, it turns out. (Joe, as an aside: "Corpses have no business walking around. It’s brass-neckery at its worst.") One succeeds and one fails, so half damage and full damage respectively. Kessler takes another 9 poison damage.

Kessler casts Mirror Image and moves away. The troll's Attack of Opportunity misses anyway, but it was still worth it. The troll moves forward and does a multi-attack against her and Tarragon. Kessler casts Shield (I’d be remiss in my duties as a guardian if I didn’t), but Tarragon is poisoned. Thanks Joe!

Actually I should have rolled a d20 for Mirror Image - Joe lets me do it retroactively, and the attack misses. I take the Shield spell slot back. Yay!

Carl’s grapple-ee makes the save and breaks the grapple. Boo.

No-Face gets a turn. Can his cantrip statue be Create Bonfire? DM says yes. He creates a bonfire under one of the trolls - the one in melee with Tarragon and Kessler again. It has to make a DEX save. It rolls a nat 1! It takes 2d8 Fire damage - 15 total, a 7 and an 8. Yeah! Tarragon and Kessler both take another 9 acid damage. Booh!

Carl has a bash at his troll but misses. He looks cross. Melaina takes a shot and does 27 damage with her sneak attack. Both trolls are looking ropey now.

Mina joins - yay!

Gideon casts Aganazzar’s Scorcher again, but the troll makes the save and takes half damage.

Tarragon Cure Woundses Kessler and steps back - tripping a trip wire, and a boulder falls on her. (Her last words are, “ah, fuc- ”)

Ahleqs does Burning Hands (complete with mouth fire sound effect) but has the flames emit from Simon’s open, roaring mouth, earning himself inspiration. He almost kills one of the trolls. He backs up and his turn is over.

(Will Baby WJ taste in in the milk if Sophie eats jalapenos on her pizza? Matthew: “Dunno. Let’s try it.”)

Kessler’s turn - Thunder Gauntlets for five damage. The acid blood still hits her, because it’s not targeted so it isn’t aiming for one of the duplicates. She attacks it again but misses. She activates a defensive field to give herself 7 temporary HP.

The troll bites at her but misses. She gives it the finger as she runs.

It moves toward Ahleqs, Carl and Gideon. 24 to hit Ahleqs? “Nope! ... Yeah…”

Mina, OOC: “Who do you think you are? Kessler?”

Ahelqs takes 6 piercing and 2 poison damage and is poisoned. The attack against Gideon hits - his battle-frock fails to protect him. Ahleqs does a little surprise sick down his front. Carl also gets hit, but takes only slashing damage.

Aardvack wants to know is the boulder trapping Tarragon? (Duncan: “Is just her ruby slippers showing?”) The DM decides that it hit, did its damage and has broken into pieces (Ahleqs is now convinced that Tarragon can meld into stone as a reaction, without using a spell slot). Aardvack moves forward and Cure Woundses her, and does a bonus action Shsdlgjsdlgkdfglsdgh, “Just in case.”

Carl strikes the troll to the northeast of him - a nat 20! He does a downward swing and bisects the thing, killing it. Woo!

The other troll sees this, and lets out a horrendous cry. Carl takes down his hood. We all gasp. He’s taut, a bit desiccated, lips stretched tight over his teeth. The troll is flattered, Joe says, but not interested.

Matthew: “… That wasn’t why he was doing it, but okay.”

Melaina does three Scorching Rays at the remaining troll - but all 3 miss. Joe: “That was woeful!”

Gideon does the same and manages to hit once for 5 fire damage - it’s enough. Ahleqs gets nine poison damage. Carl puts his hood back up.

Aardvack spends some time using his Healer’s Kit to patch people up; we accept, with varying levels of gratitude.

The Drift Globe wants to lead us over the bridge - its old, Duergar made, and a little rickety-looking.

Kessler sends her clockwork beholder over. He takes 15 damage from three Magic Missiles that issue from the tower, and he disappears. Kessler shoots at the tower with her crossbow. Nat 20. “Nobody. Hurts. Ziku.”

Smash! She smashes it.

Melaina announces that she’s going on the bridge. DM: “Stop exactly where you are, that’s perfect.”

She gets a DEX save as she hears the snap of another trip wire. (If only we knew to check for those.) Melaina rolls a 20 and she leaps back five feet, so that the lightning just misses her. Melaina: “… Rubbish.”

She makes an attempt to disarm the trap - 13 will do it.

Aardvack approaches, trying to work up the nerve to ask if the traps have been disarmed.

“… Yes. Please do, go on ahead.” She gives him a little shove.

(Sophie puts a picture of baby WJ on the chat; he’s fast asleep on his back on her lap, mouth open like a little old man. Adorable!)

Aardvack goes ahead, checking for discoloured tiles. He read about them in Adventure Stories for Boys. He makes an Investigation check - 17, no discoloured tiles. He walks forward ten feet, and nothing happens. He pokes the ground in front of him - nothing. Five more feet -

And he makes a DEX save. “Aww. I was looking for the wrong kind of trap.” He gets a 14. “Good enough…?”

DM, smug: “Nupe.”

Ahleqs does Bend Luck so he can add a d4, and gets a 4 - bringing his total to 18, which is enough to dodge out of the way of the spiked log which comes swinging across the bridge and would have hurt a lot as it knocked him off into the water. (We hear the Indiana Jones theme.) Aardvack just stays still.

“Oh Goblin Tank?”

Kessler: “Ugh, fine.” She moves forward, checking every square for traps as she goes. Trip wires, pressure plates, anything. Tarragon offers a Guidance, but she rolls a 31. She sees no traps for the next four squares.

Tarragon steps up - she sees nothing for the next three squares. She moves forward and gets hit with three more Magic Missiles from the next tower.

"... Ow."

Kessler and Ahleqs both shoot at the tower with Eldritch Blast, and smash it.

Kessler takes over again. 25 Investigation - to the end where the bridge falls away she sees no sign of traps. But the very end looks like it might fall out from under her.

The Drift Globe floats across the gap in the bridge as if it’s nothing; we will have to find our own way over.

Duncan: “So if we take the fox over on the first trip… Then the grain…”

Do we have a series of ropes? Melaina can cast Rope Trick above the gap we could swing across…? But the things in the water are a bit bitey…

Duncan: “Don’t think of it as water. Think of it as a carpet of teeth.”

Ahleqs’ idea is to take the crossbow, face away from the bridge, load the Immovable Rod into it, activate it and fire the crossbow. Kessler hands him the crossbow and tells him he’s welcome to try. He immediately shoots himself in the foot. “OW!”

Melaina hears a rhythmic sort of thumping, coming from the water to the north of us. It sounds a bit like something is tethered to one of the islands, and is being rhythmically knocked against the island by the water. She looks north and sees a little boat. Hmm.

So if Ahleqs Misty Steps across, and then Melaina casts Rope Trick, we could take turns tying ourselves to the rope and swinging over, and Ahleqs can catch us on the other side.

Ahleqs Misty Steps over with a little scream. “Did I die?”

He did not.

Melaina casts Rope Trick, and we swing across. Carl does Indiana Jones theme as he swings. (He too read Adventure Stories for Boys.) Aardvack, even though he is tied to the rope and gets ADV on his check, misses the other side and ends up hanging over the water “like a limp scrotum”. He kicks his legs to get some momentum back, and manages to make it. Gideon gets a 20; he does twinkle toes as he goes over, and a little pirouette as he lands.

The Drift Globe leads us north - past the island. We could investigate if we wish…? The only way to get to it is if Ahleqs Misty Steps into the boat, but we have to get close enough that he can see the boat. (Still hasn't upgraded Simon yet.) Tarragon casts Resistance on him to encourage him. He takes a big shaky breath and does it.

“I can’t see a chest. What I can see, is a human skeleton.”

Ardvack: “What’s the range on animate dead? I’ve got an idea for a great prank.”

He makes an Investigation check - a 15. Everything looks still, nothing seems to be moving. He approaches the chest. Having seen Melaina do crazy rogue shit with chests, so he wants to emulate that with no idea of what he’s doing.

What’s he looking for?

“Anything that makes that click sound and then spikes me, or poisons me, or sets me on fire, or there was that time Kessler got bitten by a mimic - ”

He checks for traps, using his thieves tools proficiency.

Matthew, OOC, impressed: “Not just a Saturday boy.”

Joe: “All Saturday boys are thieves!”

He opens the chest! It is not trapped! It has 10sp and 10gp, and a little platinum ring with copper wire and little squares on. It looks like it might be magical; he makes an Arcana check. A 7; he’s not sure of its exact nature. He sniffs it, shakes it, and decides it’s broken. He pockets it anyway, and will ask Gideon about it later.

It’s around now that he realises that not only does he not have enough spell slots to cast Misty Step again, but also that the boat doesn’t have oars.

We throw him the rope and pull him back across in the boat, and he shows us the stuff he found. Gideon can cast Identify as a ritual, and we can take a short rest while he does it if we want.

The ring is a Ring of Evasion!

He offers it to the rest of us, but we tell him he was very brave and that he earned it; he can keep it. The only time he’s ever been prouder was when Mr Pickles called him a good boy.

We continue our short rest, and Aardvack explains attunement to Ahleqs.

We follow the Drift Globe to the next map…

It’s dark. We make Perception checks. Aardvack rolls a nat 20. The land flattens out and becomes rocky; we start noticing pillars. We are back in ruins. This is older and bigger than the Duergar temple.

As we walk, awed by the stonework, Ahleqs, Aardvack and Melaina stop the group. Something in the distance is singing to itself in a tone deaf voice. The voice makes it sound… big.

Ahleqs: “… Maybe it’ll be friendly?”

Lead the way, metal goblin. She sighs and moves forward - and stops, when Tarragon remembers she has Pass Without Trace prepared. She casts it, and we move ahead while staying within 30 feet of Tarragon.

The path splits in two directions. One path is blocked by a fallen pillar, the other leads to an island over a rickety bridge. We approach the island; the singing becomes a little clearer.

The bridge seems sturdier close up.

What languages do we all speak? Hmm. And is Simon currently lit up? Yes.

Kessler turns slowly to Ahleqs and tells him to extinguish the mouse. She understands what the voice is singing… She signals to all of us to start backing up. She says the singer thought Simon was a firefly so we probably got away with it… for now.

Ahleqs can’t see now that Simon is extinguished, but we need to huddle together anyway so we guide him.

Now it seems to be looking for the firefly. We back up and intend to go south - but something else is coming towards us from that direction…

Oh shit oh fuck.

Kessler takes out a glow stone, and yeets it away from us. The giant then sees us. Kessler says “Hello friend!” in Undercommon.

Charisma save for Tarragon as she’s in the front, and it’s a 3. She takes 27 psychic damage, and then this happens:

(Aardvack makes a point of saying that he doesn’t seem to notice the difference.)

Kessler offers a firefly to the giant; she receives a reply and says, “Dinner won’t give you a firefly. Friend can give you a magic stone.”

He’d rather have dinner than a friend, apparently.

“Well then let me offer you some food.” And she shoots it.

All we heard was jibber jabber jibber jabber jibber jabber pah-twang.

We roll initiative.

Ahleqs: “Can I take Simon out now?”

Kessler: “You probably won’t want to see what happens next.”

Ahleqs: “… Fair enough.”

He lights Simon anyway and turns round. “Oh shit. He’s a big boy.”

Tarragon goes first. If she Wild Shapes, does the curse carry over? Highs or lows, DM asks. I pick lows. It does not carry over! Tarragon goes Giant Spider, rushes forward and bites the giant. He doesn’t like it. (Joe: “You know, that giant spider token doesn’t get any less hideous.”)

Ahleqs next. What’s he doing? Mostly just being terrified. He just goes ahead and casts Fireball. The Giant makes a DEX save - it fails and takes 24 fire damage.

Gideon drums his fingers together while he thinks, and decides that the best way to remedy this situation would be to add some Grease. We all cheer.

It pulls a 19 out of its arse and stays on its feet.

“… But Gideon cast Grease.”

Melaina is up, and she’s finished changing some pants on a small person, so she casts Tasha’s Hideous Laughter on the giant. It fails the save, and falls to the ground helpless with laughter.

It’s the giant’s turn - it can only repeat its save, which it fails again. Carl looks to Aardvack for cues. He holds his action until Aardvack tells him what to do.

Kessler shoots it but misses with a nat 1. She rolls on the fail table - Out of the shadows. If you were hiding, your target sees you. So no effect! She shoots again with a dirty 20 and hits, doing 16 damage. It rolls its saving throw again but fails.

Aardvack tells Carl to cross the bridge - he does so. For his own turn, he moves forward and sees the giant for the first time, and also the gross giant spider. Or perhaps it was his own faceless reflection in the water. “Eurgh!” He does some Eldritch Blasting. “ - I mean, divine, holy blasting.”

The giant did not like being blasted. It re-rolls the save again, but fails. Tarragon Spider shoots web all over the giant, just for safety.

Ahleqs wants to do another Fireball but doesn’t want to hit his friends, so he moves around to get a clearer shot. He hits, but destroys Tarragon’s web.

“Sorry.”

It makes its saving throw again - nat 20. The fireball is where he draws the line. The rest was just bants, but this is not cool.

Gideon’s turn, and he was a little upset at his Grease not working. He tries Ray of Enfeeblement, but that misses as well.

Melaina takes aim with Sharpshooter and risks it for the biscuit - and hits! Only 26 damage, but it’s better than a kick in the face.

The giant uses half its movement to stand up. It roars something in its nasty language, and starts to run - Spider Tarragon makes an Attack of Opportunity and hits for 9 piercing and 7 poison.

Carl continues on over the bridge as instructed. There is a huge stone dais with a magic circle, and the Drift Globe is resting atop the dais. Carl dashes.

Kessler runs after the giant and fires a Firebolt, which hits for 9 fire damage.

Aardvack pursues Carl. Tarragon pursues the giant.

Ahleqs can’t see, so he stumbles forward until he sees the giant’s camp fire, over which he was just minding his own business, roasting some drow and singing to himself until we came along. Ahleqs Fireballs him.

Ahleqs, with a sudden attack of conscience: “Is that okay? That feels wrong. He’s running away.”

Matthew, OOC: “If you place the fireball in front of him, you’re not shooting him in the back.”

It makes the save and takes half damage, but is looking ropey.

Matthew, to himself: “Now what is Gideon’s radius of terror…” He decides it would be very Scooby-Doo-esque to Grease him again, so he does. The giant fails the save and slips over, crashing to the ground.

Melaina takes aim - she should be at Disadvantage as the giant is prone, but it’s so big that the DM rules that that won’t apply. She hides and shoots - with Sharpshooter - and hits with a 21, for 32 damage.

DM: “How de do dis?”

Matthew as Melaina: “Horribly!” She feels a bit guilty about it. This just feels like bullying now.

Spider Tarragon approaches the giant and begins to eat it. She will have to inject it with digestive juices and wait for it to liquefy. That will leave a leathery giant skin, so if we all stood on each others’ shoulders -

Back to Carl, he found a stone dais, right? We will pick up from there next week. We have two more sessions before Halloween; Joe tells us we may get Halloween a week early. Woohoo! (Probably a good idea, since our last Halloween Special took us a month...)

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Roll for pride.

[thetradeway]

Session 51 Sep 18 2021: “No! Get out of my orifices!”

Right - where were we? Oh yes, we fought some piranha and found some chests and some Duergar statues. We fill Mina in on what she missed; she offers to craft Gideon a new finger.

“No… No, I don’t want your goblin crafts on my body!”

Then there’s some waffle about covid deniers. (Ed believes covid is real; Gideon does not.)

Who wants control of the urine-drenched sorcerer? Sophie, OOC: “You make it sound so appealing.”

She agrees to take Ahleqs, if Matthew will help her out.

Now, when I put a message on the group chat earlier to ask if we were starting at the usual time tonight, our illustrious DM messaged back to say ‘Yep yep yep thumbs up emoji smiley face emoji’ which was far too enthusiastic. We are all now very wary. Ardvack slams a potion before we get started.

Right, where were we going? There is still a strange magical island with a wall around it to explore. There is a boat that leads to it; Gideon advances to Investigate. It looks old but in good shape and water-tight. There are oars. He thinks three will fit in it; he volunteers as do Tarragon and Melaina. Gideon, sternly: “No pilfering, rogue.”

Tarragon rows us across. Do the others want her to go back and pick them up? Apparently not.

Gideon investigates the magical barrier, which is blocking the door, but rolls a nat 1. We make Perception checks - the giant statue of the dwarves god of crafts has an offering bowl at his feet, with something written in Dwarvish. Gideon would read it, but Ed’s buggered off.

“You cannot enter this room.”

Tarragon decides to take this as a challenge. She takes out a gold piece and puts it in the offering bowl; nothing happens so she takes it back out. Gideon covers the ‘not’ part of the carving so it reads 'you can enter this room', but that doesn’t seem to help either.

Tarragon looks at the magical wall. It’s blue, and looks a similar colour to the brazier in the other room. Could we light a torch from the brazier and try waving that at the wall? Maybe. In the meantime Gideon puts some food in the bowl; nothing doing.

Ardvack, shouting across the water: “Have you tried blood?”

Gideon squeezes some blood from his severed finger stump - still nothing. Tarragon rows the boat back to get Kessler, who has hopefully been lighting one of her torches. She has not been able to light her torch from the brazier, however; it won't catch.

Is the bowl loose? Could we pick it up? No, it’s attached to the floor. Could Kessler pick up the brazier? It won’t move either. Time for stupid ideas.

“Hey Carl,” shouts Kessler pointing at the brazier, “put your hand in that.” Carl does not. Kessler gets just such a doggy look from Ardvack; she laughingly tells him she can’t tell because he has no face. Instead he leans down and says snottily, “Carl is precious.” He investigates the brazier. Can he feel warmth coming off it? Nat 20.

There is no heat coming off it. It does create light, but there is no noise. It is not consuming anything physical. He doesn’t think it’s evil or necessarily good; it’s just a spiritual fire. Ahleqs does an Arcana check. It’s some kind of divine magic; he is fairly certain it could be extinguished with a high enough levelled Dispel Magic spell.

Ardvack puts his hand in the brazier; it doesn’t burn him. He puts his whole head in. He’s a bit light-blinded afterward for a minute or so, but is otherwise unharmed.

Tarragon has Dispel Magic, but doesn’t have it prepared. What about Ahleqs? He doesn’t have the spell at all.

Gideon wants to rest his battle-axe on the offering bowl; he does that, but nothing happens. He rescinds the axe. Perhaps crafts, considering the nature of the god? Perhaps something he’s made?

Ahleqs has Ardvack’s leather face mask at the moment; since that was made by Kessler, perhaps we could try that.

Melaina is Investigating the door behind the wall of force. She can see beyond it to a ruined dock. If she puts her hands out to the wall of force, she can feel it though it doesn’t harm her. Would putting the brazier out remove the wall? She rolls a low Insight check and doesn’t know. Gideon rolls a low Religion check as well; he doesn’t know either.

“Alright Goblin, you’re up. Do your thing,” says Gideon. She puts Ardvack's mask in the bowl, but still nothing happens.

DM offers a clue if we roll good on Insight; Ardvack, Melaina and Gideon all do. They think the inscription refers to the desired offering. Gideon wants to put something in the bowl that would not fit in the door.

What about a fish? They breathe air, and so could not pass anywhere above the water. Tarragon steps into the bowl and Wild Shapes into a fish; still nothing happens. She changes back. Is this one of those children’s riddles that we should have definitely got by now? Joe says we will absolutely kick ourselves when we get it.

Ardvack picks a handful of mushrooms - and that bloody well works. You cannot enter this ‘room. Goddammit. Joe removes the wall. If Ardvack had a face, he’d be looking smug.

We go through. Goblin shield goes first. She sees something horrible - it is currently standing motionless. It looks like a huge dwarf in heavy armour, but made of stone, and there is a faint red glow emanating from its chest. There is an open chest next to it full of shiny shinies; Kessler points them out to Melaina, possibly in hopes that she will go first. Melaina, sadly for Kessler, does not fall for this trick.

Ardvack ventures too close and it spots him - initiative time. (Ed has disappeared again. While we wait, we discuss Matthew’s zombie campaign. We will all be level 2 when we return, which gives us an ability called Zombie Grab. Matthew and Sophie order pizza.)

Tarragon Potions and readies a Thorn Whip (which always reminds Sophie of a Walnut Whip. Not the Ann Summers sort of whip, Joe asks? No, but interesting that his mind went there.) Melaina hides and shoots - 24 hits, for 22 damage. Her bow is magical, correct? Yes. Good. Okay. Bits of rock fall off the golem. Hooray!

Does she want to move, say, to run away? (Oh shit.) She moves back so everyone else can get in.

Kessler takes aim with her crossbow. 24 hits for 7 damage, and her weapon is magical as well. She reloads and shoots again for 7 more damage while Matthew and Sophie decide what Ahleqs is going to do.

They decide that he will cast Shatter on the golem. Ba-boom! It has to make a Constitution save - at Disadvantage. “Because you’re made of stone. Like an idiot.” But it gets Advantage on saves versus magic, so that’s just a straight roll. 13. “Ha! You lose!” It takes 19 Thunder damage. Ahleqs cheers, then hides behind Tarragon.

It rushes at us - Tarragon looses her Thorn Whip but misses.

Carl uses his big stick that Tarragon gave him, but misses, almost hitting everyone else around him. He was excited. He doesn’t move, but holds the line.

Gideon is up. “Ed stop eating sausages!”

“… How did you know what I was doing.”

He Acid Splashes it. The Golem fails the save, even with Advantage, and takes 9 Acid Damage.

Like the hero he has proved himself to be, Ardvack does a cautious tactical repositioning to get away from the golem, does Shksdjlsdglsghjkhhbllhh, and then casts Eldritch Blast. It hits, and more stone crumbles off the golem.

Tarragon does Greater Shlgljksdkgjfhl;jjjhh, just to flex on Ardvack, and hits it for 11 Bludgeoning. She bares her teeth at the golem.

Melaina falls back a little, and shoots again. Matthew and Sophie suddenly seem unable to hear the rest of us, so there is a short recess while we sort that out. Their wifi has died. I decide, in my infinite wisdom, to restart my computer; of course, it decides to install something without even asking and so I am still waiting for it long after Matthew and Sophie return. I miss a bunch of stuff; some people do some damage, and the golem does a thing where it forces a Wisdom save - those that fail have their speed halved, and can do an action OR a bonus action on their turn, but not both. Joe makes an attack for me, which hits. Tarragon is pleased. And then I’m back!

The golem is looking ropey. Its light is still glowing, but bits are falling off it. It turns on Carl, even though Kessler has imposed Disadvantage on it if it attacks anyone but her. 14 still hits, as does 29, and he takes THIRTY NINE damage. Carl is now on zero, having had exactly 39 HP previously.

Matthew, sounding worried: “This changes things.”

Carl makes a real death save - and fails. "No! Carl!"

Gideon's turn - and Ed has snuck off again. Or fallen asleep. We skip him for now and move on to Ardvack. “I’ll save you Carl!” Then, to himself as he runs, “Not my precious Carl…” He casts Life Transference. (A lovely, sacred, holy Cleric spell.) He saves Carl, but instantly regrets walking closer to the golem.

Tarragon batters it for 16 damage - the light begins to flicker and sputter in its chest. Does she want to move? “Nope!” She could bonus action dive in the water with the Quippers if she wanted? “… No thank you.”

Melaina does a Scorching Ray - one of the three hits for 7 fire damage total. It’s looking ‘exceedingly ropey’ but is still up.

Kessler gets the how-de-do-dis with her Thunder Gauntlets - she runs up it and yells “Red means stop!” and punches it in the chest. It falls to the ground in a big pile of rubble. We solved Joe’s Golem puzzle!

Matthew, immediately: “Loot its corpse!”

Kessler is holding the gem from its chest; it is no longer glowing. Ardvack sets about the treasure chest. It is open, and there is gold inside. He clicks on the loot chest, and adds 100gp to the 3000cp he finds. (428 cp, and 14gp each.)

Kessler: “Anyone got a Transmute spell?” (That's a lot of coins.)

Ardvack shares out the treasure as equally as possible. Kessler finds herself overburdened. Melaina slyly: “I could carry your treasure for you.”

Kessler: “No thank you.”

Where to next? There was a rope bridge in the room with the brazier that led to an island with a dead giant spider on it; Joe zips us all there for expediency.

Melaina crosses the bridge to approach the ‘very very dead’ spider; it looks like its moving around. Not the legs, but as if there’s something moving under the skin…

A swarm of maggots burst out of the spider, taking her by surprise. They swarm up her legs and over her flesh.

Melaina, equally horrified and furious: “No! Get out of my orifices!”

(This is why Joe was so pleased earlier isn’t it.)

She now has two rot grubs burrowing under her skin. We’ve all heard of these, the subject of adventurer’s tales swapped in taverns. Melaina knows she has to burn them while they’re still just under her skin, or they will burrow to her heart and kill her.

Well shit.

We roll initiative…

Ardvack fails at Eldritch Blast, and the grubs become resistant to that type of damage (Force I think?) for 1d4 rounds. (4. Fuck.)

Ahleqs does a Burning Hands at them. They fail the save and take 6 fire damage. Several screech, and curl up and burn.

Melaina wants to cast Scorching Ray on herself - she can do that. She takes two fire damage, and the grubs die. She can spend the rest of her action to squeeze them back out of the holes they burrowed in through. Delightful.

Tarragon moves to the side and Thunderwaves the swarm - they fail the save and are pushed off the bridge into the water to be eaten by the Quippers. Yay! Everyone wins! We move forward, Melaina at the head.

DM suddenly: “Stop there, Melaina!”

Us immediately: “Oh no!”

She finds a door with a shape carved in it - the gem that Kessler took from the golem looks like it would fit in there. That is not relevant right now, however, as she has charged forward and tripped a trip wire. She fails her Dex save and a giant ballista bolt sticks her for 14 damage. Could have been a lot worse. She decides she’s not doing anything else, even when tempted with a treasure chest; she goes to sit in a corner and sulk.

The treasure chest is on a different island, reachable only via a broken bridge. Kessler suggests throwing the dead spider into the water to distract the Quippers while we jump across.

Do we want to take a short rest first? Yes. Tarragon makes up some Relaxing Bark, allowing everyone to regain a couple of Hit Dice which we roll, and take potions. Ardvack casts Life Transference on Carl again.

We are about to move on when the DM has us all roll a d20. Uh oh. Anyone who got ten or more can get five more HP back, as we burned incense in a temple. Yay!

Matthew, grumbling: “Oh as soon as we get a long rest, you can bet I’m going to be re-summoning Admiral Pancakes…”

Do we want to jump the bridge after the treasure? Is it worth it? Melaina wants to; the rest of us are dubious. How far can she jump with a run-up? Ten feet. She could jump it.

“Alright then, I’ll do it. Whoosh.” Kessler follows her.

Melaina checks for traps - an 8. She can’t see any! Sophie, OOC, resignedly: “Oh, right, okay.”

She checks the chest itself and finds a trap mechanism - some nozzles sticking out of the ground next to the chest. She makes a roll with her thieves tools, and by the skin of her teeth (13) disarms it. It would have been bad; one nozzle would have squirted her with flammable liquid and the other would have set her on fire. She finds a Brooch of Shielding! There is another item, a ring, which seems magical; Kessler takes eleven minutes and casts Identify as a ritual. It’s a ring of Swimming!

Melaina gives the brooch to Ahleqs, as he would almost certainly appreciate anything that would give him some extra protection. We decide to crack on, as it would take another hour for him to attune to it. Besides, the longer we’re down here the more this place sucks so we’re all eager to leave.

Kessler puts the gemstone into the hole in the door and it creaks open; we walk through. We enter some tunnels, which are very claustrophobic after the caverns. It’s very dark. We follow them until we come out into another large cavernous room.

We jump to another map…

There are more islands with about ten foot tall towers with glowing orbs at the top. More water, and a broken stone bridge. (Is anyone reminded of Beverly?)

The bad news is, this room has glowing orb lights, a broken bridge, and more islands. The good news is, it seems quiet enough that we could take a long rest.

Kessler does her Alarm spell, and Carl - not needing to sleep - takes all the watches. We all take turns to watch with him as “his Perception is for shit.”

Kessler takes first, Tarragon takes second, and Melaina third.

Carl and Kessler make Perception checks. A 3 and a 6; oh dear. Kessler thinks she hears water noises, but it could be just the water on the shore.

Then Tarragon and Carl. 13 for Tarragon and a 16 for Carl. We watch some bats flitting about in the light from the strange tower; nothing dangerous, however. Everyone but Tarragon now completes their long rest. She retires, and Melaina and Carl roll Perception.

Carl is on fire tonight; a 17. He makes an Intelligence check - a 9. That’s actually not bad. After about 3 hours he becomes agitated and tries to say something, but can’t. Melaina’s nostrils are assailed with a foul stench; she looks to the water to see something breaking the surface of it. Which means that whatever it is doesn’t get a surprise round…

Melaina and Carl roll initiative. Carl has used all his good rolls on Perceiving. But he’s ready for anything; he’s got his stick.

Whatever is crawling out of the water looks like a troll, but dripping with horrible ichorous black ooze and smelling like a busy harbour at low tide.

Matthew, OOC: “They smell like a bonfire of nappies. No - a burning zoo.”

Melaina hides behind some mushrooms; triggering Kessler’s Alarm spell as she leaves the area (because Kessler didn’t specify otherwise). We all wake, and can roll Initiative next round. Melaina takes aim with her longbow. 19 to hit with Sharpshooter, which does. She gets a nat 1 for her Sneak/Sharpshooter which is only a measly 25 total, plus her bow’s damage of 9 for 34. The thing lets out a howl, which would have woken us if the Alarm spell hadn’t.

It approaches us. It’s wearing a loincloth; small mercies.

Everyone but Ardvack and Melaina makes CON saves as the troll runs a filthy claw down its own forearm for a venom spray attack. Gideon and Tarragon take 18 poison damage and are poisoned. The others take half damage and are not poisoned. Now it does its multi-attack.

It has a bite at Tarragon but misses, then a claw at Kessler and misses. Then it claws at Gideon, and misses again. Ha!

Another one shambles up, but doesn’t attack yet. It’s Carl’s turn; he uses his zombie agility to run up to one of the trolls and give it a good old Slam - “Classic Slam - ” and uses his Zombie Grab to try and grapple it. They make contested STR checks - Carl wins even with a 14. The bad news is that part of the troll’s corpulence is ruptured, emitting a black foul ichor into the air - Tarragon and Kessler take more damage as it, however unintentionally, does an Acid Splash.

“… Thanks Carl.”

Melaina goes first. She goes to move but takes 15 Force damage from the towers. What??? Sophie OOC, to Matthew: “Honey, I’m being shot by the nasty tower.” She was just inside its range. She shoots one of the trolls. She hits, and causes another Acid Splash. Tarragon has just woken up from a Long Rest, and is now under half HP. Melaina does do 34 damage to the troll though.

Gideon, with advice from Matthew, casts Grease under the troll that Carl is *not* grappling. This seems a classic ‘Grease’ situation. It rolls a DEX save, and fails, falling prone.

Tarragon casts Lesser Restoration on herself, ending the Poisoned effect, Rages, and steps out of range of the Venom spray.

Ahleqs screams the incantation for Mage Armour, and steps back also. Kessler’s turn, and she will risk stepping back. One is restrained and the other prone, so no attack of Opportunity. She takes out her crossbow and shoots at the one grappled by Carl. 20 hits for 11 piercing damage. “And I will shoot that sucker again.” 17 also hits for 7 damage. She drinks one of her potions; wise.

Carl takes 18 poison from Kessler’s attacks on the troll, but he’s immune to poison. Carl has the Grappler feat, so even though the troll is a size larger than him it doesn’t get Advantage on the Strength check to free itself. They roll straight Strength checks - Carl rolls a ten, and the troll rolls a 6, even with a plus four modifier.

The prone one uses half its movement to stand up and moves forward, biting at Kessler - 26 to hit. It actually hits her! Even Shield won’t do it! She takes 6 piercing and 6 poison damage, and is poisoned until the start of the troll’s next turn.

It claws twice at Tarragon; “Bring it.”

24 hits, the ten doesn’t. Ten slashing (halved to 5) and 6 poison (not halved). She’s at 19HP now, and hasn't even attacked yet.

Ardvack wakes up to see the trolls attacking. “Ah. It must be Wednesday.” Matthew, OOC: “Im going to do… something… stupid. Or… brilliant.” Seeing the damage Tarragon and Kessler have taken, he heals Tarragon for 11HP. She blinks with surprise, and he backs up.

We call it there as it's getting late...

#dnd #campaign diary #thetradeway

[thetradeway]

Session 50, 11 Sep 2021: “That's what you get for buying an energy saving mouse.”

Ed is with us this week; Sophie may or may not join and Mina is absent. I take Kessler so that I can deploy the Shield spell when appropriate. Matthew takes Melaina until Sophie joins us.

We can do a short rest if anyone wants to…? Oh we took one at the end of the last session. Matthew finds an item on Melaina’s character sheet that could have helped against the face-stealer; he decides it was very in-character of her not to use it.

Ardvack asks us a question; what is it we all think we’re doing down here? We’re looking for a wizard, right? In our endeavours we’ve encountered a face-stealing crone, is it wise to continue looking for him?

(Is he implying that our decisions are guided by wisdom?) She could have gone invisible and be among us. What if she jumps out and casts Cloudkill, as she threatened? Are we not just leading her to this wizard, who might have a face that is more useful to her?

What should we be doing instead then, Ahleqs wants to know. If this wizard has been down here for a while, she can't have stolen his face yet.

Gideon was a scholar, yes? He can make a History check about the blood hag. “Show me the money!” He remembers reading that they are spawned of the coupling of an arch-vampire and something called a scarlet hag. He groans.

He thinks it’s about evening time, and we’ve been down here about three days now.

On the subject of blood hags, Ardvack could entreat his deity for information…? “I do that.” He rolls a Charisma check; a ten. “Oh.” He may ask one question, and will get one answer.

“Erm… Oh Great Power, Above, or Below, Speaketh to me of the nature of the speaky relationship of mine face to the blood hag? Amen!”

He is told that it speaks to her in the way a familiar would; it must be truthful and it cannot withhold information. It’s probably having a grand old time with the blood hag, sipping tea and spilling all Ardvack’s secrets.

So what’s our next move? Gideon summons the Drift Globe and summons it. It floats off; we follow.

It leads us through more caves like the ones from before; bioluminescent mushrooms and strange plants. Funny insects and things floating above us that look like jellyfish. These last seem content to keep to themselves. We continue following the globe until the passage starts to narrow and it becomes darker. Those without darkvision begin to need lights. Ahleqs casts Light on Simon.

The globe leads us to a section of the passageway that has collapsed and become blocked. The drift globe dims and sinks down a bit; it seems to be trying to find an alternative route. It turns back and takes us another way. The mushrooms here are much smaller than the towering ones we’ve seen so far.

We hear water; the passage opens up into a large cavern with water, and floating islands with ruins atop them.

Gideon makes a roll with his Stonecraft; a 22. He recognises the ruins as being of Duergar origin. “Oh no. Ohhh noooo.” From the inscriptions, he thinks it might be a temple to the Duergar god of Craft.

Gideon recalls the Drift Globe. Admiral Pancakes gives a quiet, nervous hoot.

This part of the Underdark is very dim and dingy. There is a little bit of light from the plants glinting off the water. It seems that our path lies ahead, through these ruins.

Ardvack: “Surely our party Artificer ought to go first?”

Kessler, politely: “No, no, after you.”

We make Perception checks; Kessler gets some dirt in her eye. Tarragon gets a 24, but other than that the highest roll is an 11.

A swarm of nasty, bitey bastards descends, and only Tarragon gets a turn on the first round, as she's the only one who heard the buzzing of the approaching swarm…

One attacks Gideon and latches on - he will take damage from blood loss until it detaches. He has to make a CON save - at Disadvantage due to the latched Stirge. He rolls a 13 - which is a fail. For now, that doesn’t mean anything. Gideon is suitably horrified.

“This is terrible. How dare.”

Does 14 hit Ardvack? “Yes, yes, that hits me.”

DM: “Excellent.”

He takes 4 piercing damage and makes a CON save - another fail. Apparently these saves are against disease - and Ardvack may have Advantage on those. He rolls again - “Woohoo!” - a 13.

He rolls his eyes; this seems to be becoming a thing.

19 to hit Admiral Pancakes. Gasp! Before our eyes a Stirge sticks a proboscis into Admiral Pancakes and drains him dry, killing him. Ardvack grits his lipless mouth.

One attacks Tarragon and misses.

21 to hit Ahleqs? “No!” (It does.) He makes the save, but he takes 7 piercing damage. “I don’t… I don’t want it.”

Melaina gets hit, but Matthew’s computer has crashed so Ed takes Melaina for him. Carl gets hit and rolls a nat 1 on his CON save.

The stirges go first again on the next round. A second stirge attaches itself to Ardvack; he sighs.

(Sophie joins us!)

Ardvack does a Shocking Grasp on the one attached to his face (or rather, the nose holes where his nose used to be - that part’s nice and blood-rich) and hits it for 7 damage, killing it.

Gideon’s eyes are starting to look milky, after he fails another CON save - he’s contracted a blinding disease. He fumbles blindly at the stirge attached to his neck - it’s an action to remove it, or he can attack. He clubs it with his tankard of brawling - 13 hits for 3 damage and kills it, as he hammers the tankard down on top of his spell book, trapping and squishing the stirge.

Carl squishes one in his hands, and shakes the mush off.

Melaina wants to stick her rapier through the stirge attached to her neck. She hits and kills it. “It probably pisses blood all over my face.”

Tarragon swats one off Ardvack’s face and kills it; it tumbles over the edge of the cliff and splashes into the water below.

Ahleqs wants to make Eldritch Blast a melee attack; the DM allows it. He becomes a human bug-zapper, his hands like the two prongs on a taser. He hits and fries it, and the one next to Kessler.

DM: “How de do dis?”

Ahleqs: “Bzzzzzzzzzzzt!”

Kessler swats the other one next to her and fries it with her Thunder Gauntlets.

DM: “Ardvack? No-face? Your turn.”

Duncan, OOC: “Nobby No-Face.”

Ardvack does a Divine Eldritch Blast and kills the last one, the Force damage shatters its bones which then ricochet around inside it and destroy all its organs. Delightful.

We killed them all - that’s the good news. Bad news, Gideon is blind. As is Ardvack. And Melaina. And Carl. Tarragon casts Lesser Restoration on Gideon and Ardvack, and Ardvack uses his Medicine kit to see if he can cure the others with ‘ointments’. He cures Gideon, and then Carl.

So some of our veins are a bit leaky, but we’re used to that by now. Ahleqs gratefully accepts some healing from Ardvack, as does Gideon.

Since he’s accustomed to being underground, Gideon offers to lead us through the ruins. Should we check for traps, he wonders? He rolls 18 Investigation - he just catches the light glinting off a tiny wire which spans the width of the bridge on our side.

“Ah, I’ve found a typical Duergar trap.”

Melaina steps up to disarm the wire with her thieves’ tools, and rolls a 22. As she expertly cuts the wire she follows it up to a stalactite on the ceiling, poised to crash down on us if we tripped the wire.

Ahleqs spots something on one of the further islands; he can roll Perception or Investigation.

“... How about Persuasion?”

He rolls badly, and then points it out to the rest of us. Do we know what it might be? We get caught up talking about Ardvack’s face, really drilling down into what he looks like; a melted candle probably, or Mickey Rourke. Post-surgery.

Tarragon sees the light Ahleqs was pointing at; it looks like a ceremonial brazier with a magical blue fire in it. They have these and similar in temples sometimes. It doesn’t mean that people are still here so there’s no reason to be alarmed necessarily. Ahleqs decides to be slightly alarmed anyway.

Gideon and Melaina are nearest the bridge; they look across to the next island. There is a magical wall, like the one that kept back the demon that the fey’rie almost fed Melaina to. Is there anything on the other side? A ruined building. There is a physical wall as well. Hmm. Whatever is in there is either great, or really terrible.

Gideon, confident that there are now fewer traps on the bridge, strides across. Nothing hits him, so we follow. We are faced with a 30 foot high rock face. Ardvack can see a narrow pass to get around. It’s going to involve some sidling (and a DEX check), or we can brave the water.

Ardvack rolls a nat 20 and skips across. He turns back with his leather face to the rest of us.

“Did you - Carl, did you see?”

Nothing seems about to eat him, so we all slowly follow. Ahleqs also scores a nat 20! Gideon slips and slides ten feet into the water. We watch as he bobs and floats; he seems to be alright. As he bobs back under, he sees this:

Gideon: “Oooh that’s a lot of teeth!”

We roll initiative…

The fish go first, and swarm Gideon, giving him “lots of little bitey kisses.” Is he at full health? Not quite. DM: “Excellent! They have Advantage since you’re bleeding in the water.” He takes THIRTY TWO piercing damage. Shit.

Ardvack looks around at everyone, before leaping into the water next to Gideon, and casts Dimension Door, transporting both of them back up onto the island.

Tarragon uses her action to try to get across, but she falls in too - she uses her bonus action to Rage.

Kessler gets a few with her Magic Missile, doing ten total damage.

Gideon, in something of a foul mood, shakes himself off a bit before shooting an Acid Splash at them. They roll a DEX save, and make it. “Oh well.”

Ahleqs does a few Eldritch Blasts - and manages to kill one little fish. “I guess no-one notices.”

Me, OOC: “I noticed.”

Ahleqs: “Thanks.”

Carl walks to the edge, and lowers down his whip (given to him by Kessler) like a rope, for Tarragon to grab on her turn.

Then the fishies get a go… at Advantage, as Tarragon is not at full health. 17 hits, for 18 damage (halved from 37 for Rage).

Ardvack, in a stunning turn of events, jumps into the water. The others can tell what his expression would be if he had a face, even just from looking at the back of his head. He Dimension Doors Tarragon up to the top again. He then announces that he has an idea that might stop anyone else from falling in.

Tarragon, confused from going from the middle of a fight to being rescued by the guy she hates, doesn’t really have anything to do on her turn so she just sort of yells a bit.

Melaina vanishes into thin air (30 stealth) and shoots, but misses.

Kessler shoots with her crossbow and hits twice for 9 total damage. Gideon does his Acid Splash again. The fish make the save and take no damage. “Couldn’t we just walk away? They can’t get us up here.” He is gently reminded that some of the party haven't crossed yet, and may still fall in.

Ahleqs does another Eldritch Blast; he considers using Tides of Chaos but decides he’s too close to the rest of us.

Carl makes an attack with his whip, since he's holding it, even though he has no proficiency. “It’d be hilarious if he hits.” 5 doesn’t quite do it. “He whips at the water.” He decides to wait for Ardvack’s idea before attempting to cross.

The fishies sink back into the water; we are out of initiative. For now.

Ardvack’s idea is to attach a rope to his Immovable Rod to aid people to cross. Tarragon pulls her rope out of her bag and hands it to Ardvack wordlessly and without looking at him.

Ardvack: “How the tides have turned. Is anyone any good at tying knots? I’m an absolute duffer at that sort of thing.”

Ahleqs has the highest Sleight of Hand modifier on this side, so he ties the rope while Melaina shouts instructions from the other side. He rolls a 14; good enough. Ardvack clicks the button to activate the rod, and the DM reduces the DC for crossing, and allows them to make checks at Advantage.

Tarragon, still raging from being bitten half to death and then mortally embarrassed by being rescued by Ardvack, makes a Strength check to fling the other end of the rope across the gap to Carl - a nat 20.

Kessler rolls 17 and crosses safely. Melaina decides to go last, and takes the rope from Carl, who crosses with an 18. Melaina ties the rope around her waist, just in case she rolls two natural 1s, and crosses; it’s an 8. Now that the DC is lower, fortunately that’s just what she needed. It’s not pretty, but she makes it.

Ardvack does a Cure Wounds on Gideon, and then another. Then, he Cures Tarragon as well.

Tarragon, begrudgingly: “Thank you for healing me and saving my life.”

We see a huge dwarf statue, with an offering bowl at its feet as we round the corner.

Ahleqs: “Ah, I can’t see it. I need a more powerful mouse.”

DM: “That's what you get for buying an energy saving mouse.”

He does spot a little rowing boat in the other direction, and a hole in the wall which looks to lead into the room with the strange blue brazier. He goes to the edge and peers over at the boat.

He also sees some glowing mushrooms; he uses Mage Hand to pick some of them, and holds them up in front of his face to have a real good look at them. Tarragon can’t find a picture of them in her herbalism book. Nothing in Ahleqs’ Fresh Produce background is helpful either.

He holds them up to his face and gives them a sniff - they smell regular, but a bit more pungent. “Does anyone want to test them?” Silence.

Gideon: “I’m immune to poison - gimme!” He takes a generous munch. Ardvack prepares a spell to cure poison just in case.

It tastes mild; he waits, but no ill effects. He eats the rest. He’s not at full health and it doesn’t replenish his HP. So not deadly, but not healing either. Ahleqs decides not to pick any more in case they’re protected. Then he changes his mind and picks some for Tarragon to experiment on; she thanks him and stashes them away.

So statues or rickety boats? Ardvack takes a closer peer at the statues. 16 Investigation - they’re very finely made, armoured dwarves made of metal. Gideon says that’s not especially unusual, as they are in a temple to a crafting deity. With that, we flounder a bit. What next?

Which way would the Drift Globe lead us? Gideon activates it - it shoots out from him and heads west through the hole in the wall - we see it come back out, over another island and stops, hovering at the end of its range.

Adrvack suggests that, just in case there’s something horrible on the other side of the hole, perhaps Kessler could send her clockwork beholder through first. She does so. We see it shine in the blue light, and nothing happens to it. It returns to her as requested.

If we’re happy with that experiment we can move on; Ardvack is concerned that because Ziku isn’t alive, perhaps it wouldn’t trigger anything that might kill one of us. Ahleqs reluctantly sends Simon, after some cajoling. Simon trots through - and passes through safely.

Ardvack: “In that case it must be safe. Forward march.”

Ahleqs dubiously: “Safe for mice.”

Ardvack marches in - nothing happens. He sees four dwarven statues. They look so real, it’s no wonder he thought they might come to life. They do not, however. He does a little Investigate.

There was an altar here with some ruined chairs but it’s smashed now; the duergar would have sat here and made enchanted items or left offerings.

He makes another Investigation check looking for items - he sees a bronze treasure chest. “Carl, with me. Admiral Pancakes - oh. I’ve just upset myself a little.”

He has a look for traps and rolls a 9; looks safe. He starts to open the lid with his club. It opens, and he, Carl and Melaina all have to make Wisdom saves. Melaina aces hers. Ardvack rolls another 9, and Carl rolls a natural 20.

The DM tells him to roll a d4 - he rolls a 4. Melaina hears a telltale click as he opens the chest and looks away just in time to avoid being blinded by a flash of light. Ardvack is blinded and confused for five minutes. (Carl was mid-blink.)

Gideon goes to assist Ardvack while Melaina checks the chest - she rolls on a loot table, and gets a potion of lesser healing, as well as 61gp of black gems and a soapstone carving of a sea creature with a warlock cantrip carved into it.

Ardvack, Melaina and Carl make Perception checks once Ardvack’s blindness has worn off. (Carl perceives so badly he actually hurts himself.) Ardvack sees another chest - this one is open, with gold spilling out of it. Melaina looks up and out to the east into one of the towers - she sees another chest shining.

She feels a bit suspicious. She can’t get to the chest she’s seen - but she’s seen some steps that might well lead up to it, even though the rope bridge we saw earlier that clearly used to lead there is now broken.

She goes up the steps and checks for traps. 23 - she spots something suspicious around the lock mechanism. She does a Thieves’ Tools check for a 19. She hears a satisfying click and it is disarmed. It’s not locked, so she opens it to find a Stone of Good Luck - it gives her plus one on all checks and saves. She doesn’t even need to attune to it!

Ardvack and Carl head for the other chest. There’s a long way around to the island where it is, or we could hop the gap where the broken bridge is.

Joe has promised Mina some extra horrors to make up for missing this week, and he wants to save them for when she gets back so we call it there. (Ed decides that Gideon looks down at his hand to discover that he has a missing finger, likely lost to the fish things.)

#dnd #campaign diary #thetradeway

[thetradeway]

Session 49 21 Aug 2021 - Faceless Jim

Duncan is at Matthew and Sophie’s house, so we’re just waiting for Ed (who is with us this week! He is back from the festival with a lurgy, which may or may not be covid. “Several people I was… Well, I was in a car with, have got it.” Duncan: “You can say ‘cuddle puddle’, it’s okay.” He did see Devin Townsend though.) and Mina.

Matthew: “Terrible things happened last week!”

Sophie, remembering: “*Gasp* Oh yeah! Not to anyone important though.”

Ardvack has no face, which was stolen by this creature:

Joe has edited Ardvack’s token accordingly:

We’re in the Underdark, as a reminder. Does Ardvack want Kessler to fashion him a face out of something? Ahleqs pats him on the shoulder and reassures him that we’ll fix him when we get back to the surface. Kessler wants to, in her spare time, work on a way of making Ardvack a face. He bandages himself for now, and casts Disguise Self so he looks like he still has his face. Matthew is able to edit the token and switch between his faces.

“Don’t investigate me too much.”

Tarragon Investigates for mushrooms, and finds two types that could be useful in herbal recipes, so she makes some cuttings and stores them away. One is green and seems poisonous; she could use it for her contact poison. (It’s like the ones you get in Fallout 4.) The second is blue and called a Nightlight mushroom; if you burn it, it releases a relaxing smoke; she could use it in her Relaxing Bark recipe.

Gideon’s ring says that the drift globe is trying to lead us east.

We decide to take a long rest; during it, Ardvack gives Gideon the stone of Shar that we found.

Tarragon makes Kessler some contact poison for her crossbow bolts. She can add a d6 poison damage on ten crossbow bolts - but the poison loses potency once it’s exposed to air, and is ineffective after 1 hour.

Kessler manages to make a slightly creepy leather face for when Ardvack’s illusion drops. “But I haven’t got a chainsaw. I’ll have to make do with a wood saw.” She will make him a better one when we get back to town. He takes it with two fingers and inspects it. He looks her dead in the face and says thank you, and tries to surreptitiously put it in a pocket.

We move on.

We make Perception checks; Tarragon rubs mushroom spores in her eye (nat 1). Gideon notices bones on the floor around us. They’re from creatures rather than humanoids; he makes an Investigation check on them but he’s not sure what exactly. He thinks maybe something medium-sized, possibly canine.

Have the bones been gnawed on, Ahleqs wants to know? He makes an Investigation check as well, but he can’t see any chew-marks.

Have any been cut cleanly? Kessler, Tarragon and Melaina see that some look half sheared, half smashed; it doesn’t look like a weapon was involved. Whatever did this ripped its victims apart; they are of various ages but some are pretty new, and they are clean of meat.

Uh oh.

The scenery starts to change. The large mushrooms begin to thin out, and the place grows more cavernous. The ceilings get lower, and there are stalactites and stalagmites. Kessler, Melaina, Gideon and Tarragon hear clicks and little scraping noises from multiple directions.

Gideon, with rising horror: “Some hideous creature dripping with ichor!”

We listen for more sounds as we move, and they seem to be getting more frequent. Gideon thinks we should check to make sure we’re going the right way, and uses the ring to illuminate the drift globe again. It rushes ahead of us and down into an area of huge stalactites and stalagmites; he extinguishes the globe.

Ardvack: “When I die down here… First off I’m sorry, for literally everything. But I was wondering if I could entrust to you… Carl. It was always my aim to find a cleric who could cast True Resurrection on him, so he could go back to his own family. I want you to promise me you will do your best to find someone who can bring Carl back to life so he can live a full life.”

Kessler wants to know if Ardvack can promise us that Carl wasn’t a murderer. He was bitten by a snake, Ardvack says. He was a woodsman. He didn’t look like a murderer.

Ahleqs points out that if Ardvack dies, we’re not getting out of here either.

Gideon spots some skeletons up ahead. “I fear I’ve made a grave mistake…"

Sophie, OOC: “Pun intended.”

Gideon makes a Perception check - a 12. At the end of the cavern in the direction the globe was pointing, is a large creature with a vulture like head with a carapace and razor sharp claws.

Gideon, eyeing the hook horror: “How important is this wizard, exactly?”

Ardvack realises that without the wizard, we can’t get out. We were teleported down here… Oh, it turns out that once we get back within the wards (where we teleported in) they will know we’re there and teleport us back.

What are we looking at? It’s a skeksis, isn’t it?

It’s a skeksis.

Ahleqs: “… Maybe it wants to talk?”

Joe: “Tarragon and Melaina, would you like to look behind you?”

We turn. There are two more behind us.

Initiative time…

Faceless Jim is up first.

(Duncan thinks Joe is sick of this campaign and is just throwing monsters at us to see how long we’ll survive. Joe: “I asked you if you wanted to go to the Underdark, Duncan, and you said yes so I have no sympathy with you.”)

Faceless Jim’s computer takes a shit, so he has Joe cast Eldritch Blast for him. Both hit for ten total damage. The creature ahead of us emits a hideous screech.

Then one of the things gets a go… It’s the fourth one, that we didn’t know was there. Oh good!

Gideon, who hasn’t turned around yet: “Oh, there’s two!”

It towers over Ardvack and foul smelling drool drips onto him.

Ed: “Does it purr and roll onto its back?”

It does not do that.

One of the attacks is a nat 1, but the other hits and it starts to peck some of Ardvack’s scalp off.

Tarragon hears a thumping noise behind her as one of the others attacks her, but both miss.

Before Ahleqs’ turn, a fifth one appears.

Me: “He is! He’s trying to kill us!”

The newcomer thinks the Grease Wizard looks delicious. It misses as well, fortunately.

Ahleqs casts Shatter. “Why are there so many?”

Joe: “Because they hunt in packs.”

“… Clever girl.”

Joe will let Ahleqs soil himself as a free action if he wants. His muscles are too clenched, unfortunately. Next round, perhaps.

One attacks Melaina and hits, and then it’s her turn. She Bonus-Action-Disengages and retreats into a corner to attack the one in melee with Tarragon. 16 hits. 37 damage! It screams and wobbles.

Ahleqs: “… And dies?”

No, but it looks rough.

Kessler uses one of her new poisoned crossbow bolts - a hit and a natty 20. Noice. Including the poison, 45 damage. Noice! It wavers on its feet and throws up a foul substance right next to Gideon.

Gideon: “Augh! Why!”

Tarragon Thunderwaves the two closest to her. The injured one is pushed away.

Joe: “That one’s having his worst ever day.”

Tarragon, brightly: “Good! I’m glad to have been a part of it.”

Carl is up, but Matthew has to go and collect pizza from the door. Once he returns, Carl dashes recklessly up to one and does a Slam attack. It hits, and the thing is looking tatty; Carl decides fuck it and goes for a bonus action grapple attack; but the thing is bigger than him, and may escape automatically. He gives it a go anyway. He does grapple it, but it has advantage to escape on its turn.

Is the river water, or methane, or what? It’s water? Okay, dwarven combat roll! Gideon lines himself up to get two of them in his sights, and uses the ruler to prove he can hit them both. Both fail the save for Aganazzar’s Scorcher!

“I do 28 roasting damage to these chickens!”

He gets a how-de-do-dis on the one Carl’s grappling - its feathers catch fire and it crumbles into ash. Carl gives Gideon a gauntleted thumbs up.

Ed, absolutely delighted: “Wait wait wait, I got my one liner cause they’re birds!

“I knew this would be a poultry affair!”

Gideon takes a badass sip from his magical ale jug. He is very pleased with himself and puts his hands on his hips.

(Welcome back, Ed.)

Another ninja one appears.

Ardvack, resigned: “Yep.” He drops his Disguise Self spell, and is attacked and pecked by one of the hook horrors.

Joe, entirely too pleased with himself: “What you doing, Ardvack? Apart from being digested.”

He Misty Steps the fuck outta there, and turns for an Eldritch Blast. It emits some high pitched clicks and the others respond; Kessler takes an Attack of Opportunity as it tries to retreat, but misses. It dashes to the back of the cave and is gone.

The two near Tarragon both attack her. Tarragon: “Bring it.” They do, and both hit. Tarragon, surprised but not especially inconvenienced: “Oh. Ouchie.”

Ahleqs does Eldritch Blast on one of them. How-de-do-dis! Yay! “I turn it into chum!”

Now a semi-professional coward, and aware that these things will have to kill a good number of his friends before they get to him, Ahleqs stays where he is.

Melaina hides and does Sharpshooter; 11 just misses.

Kessler steps up to one and punches it in the jaw. She goes for an Animal Handling check to try and tame one, but rolls badly.

Tarragon Rages and goes for an attack with her quarterstaff and rolls a nat 1. Butterfingers: You lose your grip mid-swing and your weapon goes flying (15 feet) away in the direction of your target. She looks over her shoulder to see who noticed; at least Ahleqs and Melaina, possibly Ardvack as well.

“… Well, shit.”

Carl goes for a Slam attack but misses. Gideon goes for an Acid Splash.

Joe: “Not until you do the voice!”

Ed, in Gideon old-man voice, as requested: “Acid Splash!” He moves, and turns his token around - and is genuinely alarmed to see Ardvack, faceless, standing behind him.

One gets a Nat 20 on Carl - he is Frightened of them for five rounds (Joe rolls on the crit table), and he takes 32 damage from just the crit, and then 6 more on top.

Another goes for Kessler but she reaction-Shields.

Faceless Jim again, and after some deliberation he looks in his mirror, re-assesses his face, pockets the mirror again, and does an Eldritch Blast on the one that attacked Carl. He rolls a one and a two on two d10. He basically pets it a bit too hard, like a kid with a cat. Ardvack bonus-action Healing Potions.

The one behind Tarragon hits her twice again. She’s raging so it’s halved to 12.

Ahleqs casts Shatter on that one, at level 3. “BLAAAAAM! Get Shattered, son!” (The somatic component for that spell is gang signs, it turns out.) It hits, and bits and chunks fly off. He has to roll a d20 (he’s been forgetting to do that) and rolls a nat 1, so he has to roll on the chaos table. He casts Levitate on himself.

Melaina rinses and repeats. 16 to hit for 32 damage! It looks rough!

Kessler once more tries to tame the one in front of her, beginning by punching it. The punch connects, but the taming attempt does not. She punches it again.

Tarragon goes bear and rips one apart, going to town on the innards. She lumbers toward the remaining two hook horrors, in melee with Carl and Kessler.

Carl is Frightened so he runs away, and the hook horror closest gets an Attack of Opportunity. 14 hits for 12 Piercing, but he has enough Hit Points to survive it. He runs to hide behind Ardvack, his gauntleted hands on Ardvack’s shoulders. (Bearing in mind that he is both broader and considerably taller than Ardvack.)

Gideon goes for a brilliant Dwarven tactic - the flank! Or - wait, no. He could always summon Rusty…?

We wait, while Ed has ideas. He could do flumph delivery on his spell! Wait, he can scurry - "such as only a dwarf can perform" - so he can properly place his cube, and Thunderwaves two hook horrors. Both succeed the save - and the bones nearby are scattered by the spell to reveal something shiny.

One is very injured and tries to run - Attack of Opportunity from Kessler and Gideon. Kessler’s hits, but Gideon swings with his magical tankard and misses with a nat 1. He rolls on the crit fail table - Sidestepped. Swap places with the target and make a DC 14 Dex save - on fail, you fall prone. The target has gone, and Gideon makes the save. Phew.

Ardvack doubles down and tries again. Eldritch Blast, one hit and one miss. 8 Force damage. He bonus action potions again.

Floating shop boy can’t do much so he stops concentrating on Levitate (even though it was involuntarily cast) and does Eldritch Blast as well. another hit and another miss. Ardvack, with his skinless face: “Attaboy!”

Melaina steps behind some stalagmites and hides with a nat 20, becoming basically invisible. She then misses with her attack. “Bollocks.”

Kessler turns her attention to the last remaining hook horror and warns it that it can end up like its mates, or it can be her steed. It makes some panicky clicks, but none are returned from the gloom. Kessler rolls her third 7 on Animal Handling.

Ardvack, calling from further away: “Just buy a horse!”

Kessler hits it for 7 Thunder damage and winds up the second shot which is a nat 20. Stunning blow: Max damage, and the target must make a DC14 CON save. On fail the target is stunned. It makes the save.

Bear Tarragon goes full Revenant, picks up the hook horror and shakes it until bits fall off. “And then I eat the bits.”

That was the last of them; Gideon goes immediately for the shiny thing he saw. “Gimme. Gimme gimme gimme.”

It’s a wooden ring carved with mice. He wants to cast Identify; have we got ten minutes? Sure!

It’s a Ring of Warmth. While wearing this ring, you have resistance to cold damage. In addition, you and everything you wear and carry are unharmed by temperatures as low as −50 degrees Fahrenheit.

Ed, suddenly realising something: “We’re ticking too many boxes - finding rings in caves, oh no!!!!”

We take a short recess for hit dice and tea.

Ardvack does not cast Disguise Self again. We all make Insight checks, even Bear-Tarragon. Anyone above a ten knows we have ticked over to the next day. We are now on the 2nd of Eleasis, in the year 1492. Ardvack reanimates some of the bones and calls the resulting minion Beverly. He is a boy.

Sophie, pinging something on the map: “Joe is this a mushroom? It’s all veiny and weird and I don’t like it.”

Melaina roots around for stuff, and unearths a leather roll of papers, quills, seals, sealing wax and so on. Joe: “I like to think that some poor diplomat has been ripped apart down here.”

Gideon reactivates the drift globe, and we follow. We continue through the caverns, in a general downward direction.

“You can travel at a slower pace and sneak…?”

Gideon, immediately: “No!”

Tarragon can be a bear for up to two hours; she remains so for as long as she can, but reverts back after a while.

We start to hear water. Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.

We are led to a bottleneck, and then a giant cave full of bioluminescent plants - ferns, and flowers, rather than mushrooms. Even the water glows a strange blue. We see a stone bridge crossing a subterranean river which crashes down from a waterfall. On either side of the bridge are two pillars made of skulls.

Ardvack, crossly: “Well this is going to go swimmingly, I assume.” He tells Beverly to cross the bridge - the eyes light up in all the skulls. Necrotic energy bursts from them, right at Beverly.

Gideon, waving: “Bye, Beverly.”

How many HP does Beverly have? And what’s his Dexterity? Not enough. Beverly is dust.

Ardvack turns to us with his skinless face. “You’re welcome.”

Hmm. Who’s next?

Could we wade? The water is glowing, so that’s probably not good. It doesn’t look too deep. Ahleqs wants to know if it’s magic. He makes an Arcana check - a 7. He has no idea. Ardvack takes the Help action.

Joe: “Look at Ardvack, making friends. Someone should have ripped your face off years ago son.”

Ardvack: “… I spit at God.”

The water is likely just glowing from minerals or something. Ahleqs does Eldritch Blast at the pillars; no damage. Melaina and Kessler look at the bridge: they remember when Beverly set foot on the bridge, the pillars adjusted to aim at him. They see burn marks across the bridge where other creatures have been struck before.

If one of us can get across maybe there’s an off switch? Melaina calculates how far she can jump, and aims for a boulder in the middle of the river. The sockets of the skull stay dark and the pillars do not move.

Could we use a mirror to reflect the beams back? Ardvack thinks it won’t work; there will be a mirror and an evaporated person.

Melaina estimates a four foot depth in the water. She can’t jump because she has no space for a run up on the boulder, so she steps in and wades square by square. “Does anything happen?” The skulls stay dark and the pillars don’t move.

Tarragon asks Carl if she can climb up on his shoulders as she would be swept away in four feet of water; he gives her a thumbs up and crouches down. Kessler doesn’t yet have a jet pack, so what will she do?

Carl ventures across, ignoring the boulder and wading right from the start. He lumbers slowly; he’s not a raging cadaver right now. He sets her down gently on the other side.

Matthew OOC: “So I assume Ardvack is eaten by the river monster…?”

As we pass through, we see that the water is perfectly clear. We can fill our water skins if we want. We do.

Gideon and Kessler are still on the other side. Gideon wants to swim. Kessler wants to jump at least halfway, and swim the rest.

Close up we can see that the skulls are carved from stone. Gideon uses his stone cunning to tell us that it looks like Duergar work.

“Oh dear. The Grumpy Dwarves, we call them.”

Ardvack is going to evaporate someone when we get back. He moves three squares and is told “Stop right there!” by the DM.

Here is what happens: There is a 40 foot-ish high ceiling here, with stalactites. We pass through two columns, and something makes an attack: a tendril reaches down from the ceiling and grapples Ardvack. Does 24 hit Melaina? Yes? She is also grappled then. As is Carl, and Gideon.

It then reels Ardvack in - he is raised 25 feet in the air.

It’s a roper!

Ed, OOC: “He’s ‘orrible! Get rid of him!”

We roll initiative…

Ahleqs goes first. After his customary scream, he casts Shatter. “That’s a good spell! BLAM!” He throws his gang signs. It makes the save and takes five damage.

Kessler hits with her poisoned crossbow bolts. Carl makes an attempt to break free from the roper’s grapple, but fails. He makes a breathy, dusty, dry sound.

Gideon wants to cast something, and can do so while grappled, so he goes Fireball. “How dextrous can it be? It’s literally nailed in place!”

Joe: “You say that; it rolled an 18.”

Gideon: “You bitch!”

He hears other screams up there. “Oh no, I think it might have fried our wizard!” He looks at the drift globe; it wants us to continue on through this cavern. He hasn’t cooked our quarry. Phew. For some reason, we never follow up on the screams.

Tarragon runs up to Melaina to hit the tendril grappling her, but misses. Two more tendrils try to grapple her, but miss.

The tendril holding Ardvack lifts him higher, and the roper bites him for 19 piercing damage. Matthew, OOC: “I imagine you all see something pierce me and come out the back.”

Melaina tries to break free. “Bazinga. Twelve! A mighty twelve.” The roper rolls a nine, so she’s free! She moves away and hides - but just before she rolls to hide, she is told to hold that thought.

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

Joe: “Does 18 hit you?”

“*sigh* yes.” She takes four piercing damage, as a maggot type creature hangs from the ceiling onto her head, and gives it a good monch.

She’s at Disadvantage now, with her lovely slug hat.

Ardvack goes for a Shocking Grasp, but rolls a nat 1. (He is having yet another terrible day.) Crit fail magic macro: Not quite what I meant. The target of your spell becomes resistant to the damage type of the spell for 1 round.

Ahleqs makes a Perception check; “Ohhhhh, God.” 15 - high on the ceiling above him he can hear shuffling sounds. He calls up: “No, thank you.” He casts Fireball. The roper fails and takes 30 points of damage. “And is killed. And is killed…?”

In the flash of the fireball, we see that some of the stalactites are quivering and shaking.

He rolls his d20, but is fine.

Carl is still grappled. He wants to grab hold of the tendril and pull back, digging his heels in and trying to pull it off the ceiling. He rolls high, but the roper rolls higher with a nat 20. Dammit.

Kessler shoots with her crossbow. A hit and a miss.

Another Piercer drops down and narrowly misses Ahleqs. He gives it a kick. Gideon is up. “Well then.” He does Aganazzar’s Scorcher again and hits. “I burn ye!”

Tarragon runs forward an smashes Ahleqs’ piercer with her quarterstaff, showering Ahleqs with goo. He uses Tides of Chaos on his Dex check and his hair falls out again. Tarragon heals Ardvack with Healing Word at third level, for which he is not grateful. A piercer falls on Tarragon and hits her for 4 damage, and then a tendril reaches down and grapples her.

Another tendril reaches down and misses Kessler. A third grabs for Ahleqs and gets him. Ardvack is bitten by the roper; he throws up his breakfast in its mouth. It reels Tarragon in.

“I hope I give you the shits!”

Ahleqs is hit by another piercer. “It hits me square in my self.”

Melaina shoots for the roper. “Bollocks. Eleven.” She bonus action hides again “So that my worm friend doesn’t see me.”

Ardvack casts Shillshsldgksdkghsdglhjjhh and bonus action Flaming Blades it. “That much [damage].” Eighteen total, jabbing around in its gullet.

The stone part of the roper is cracking, and weeping some sort of ooze between the cracks.

A maggot drops past Kessler and splats on the floor. “I laugh.”

Ardvack: “Quick! Kessler, Animal Handling check! Make it a mount!”

Ahleqs: “Fuck it, I’m gonna do another Fireball.” The roper fails the save and takes 34 fire damage. “Oooh, hello!”

It is pretty heinously wounded now, and it uses its reaction to drop everyone who’s grappled. Ardvack and Tarragon are going to take some falling damage. Carl refuses to let go of it; he fully intends to pull the roper off the ceiling or pull the tendril off the roper.

Carl makes a STR check - an 11. “Awwww.”

Kessler shoots with her crossbow again - 17 misses, both times.

Gideon does Aganazzar’s Scorcher again, and the roper fails the save. How-de-do-dis!

“I scorch it like Doctor Octopus’ laser beam and it drops down but doesn’t hit anyone - conveniently - and it plops down on the ground.”

We squish the remaining Piercers, as they can’t do much once they’ve dropped. Carl uses one to kill another one.

We’ve solved Joe’s roper puzzle, but there’s still no sign of Ava, or of the wizard.

We take a short rest, before we halt there for this week.

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 48 14 Aug 2021: "Dhidth hwe huin?"

I’m late today. Ginger balls. Never admit you were wrong, and never apologise! Has anyone heard from Mina? She may or may not join us. Billy Corgan on a rollercoaster!

Matthew, wondering: “Does Billy Corgan have alopecia, or is that a choice?”

Duncan: “I don’t know, I’m not his mum.”

Matthew opens a 4% by volume Potion of Healing, and we get started. Everyone makes saving throws except Tarragon for their hangovers after the Midsummer festivities. Ahleqs is delicate but not too rough; he has however just discovered that he is no longer immune to alcohol. (He isn’t quite puking up pixies, so he’ll take it.) Gideon is bright as a button, as is Kessler, and Melaina. Ardvack complained that the sherry wasn’t up to snuff, so he didn’t drink much.

Gutpunch is snoring and emitting smells when the boys wake in their room. Tarragon returns as the sun rises. She returns to her chambers to find everyone else asleep; she joins them, and Mina joins us. The gnome bunked in with us is not emitting smells. There’s a bang on our door - it’s one of the Avowed, a runner.

“Your presence is requested in one of the Necessariums.” He’ll return for us in a few minutes.

Same thing happens for the boys; Ahleqs tries to wake Gutpunch, with no success. Ahleqs, blearily: “Necessari- what? What is this Hogwarts bullshit?”

Is Darkspire in with them? Yes. The Avowed asks if he behaved; yes, Ahleqs thinks so. Charity overhears this conversation, and butts in. He opens the door wide and tells Ahleqs to go back to bed; he does so. Charity peers at the Avowed’s face, the one who showed us to our rooms.

“Yes? What? Yes? I’m here. Everything’s fine, nothing occurred.” Assured that no crimes have been committed, the Avowed retreats.

Ahleqs asks Charity why there would be ‘incidents’. He says he has no idea.

We use our ten minutes to head to the Hearth for breakfast. Ahleqs has water. And a small pot of coffee. and one egg, and one bit of toast with some salt. “Is there any tabasco?”

Ardvack explains about the Necessariums. They are tall towers with lots of books; we can’t access them ourselves but the Avowed will get us anything we want. Kessler wants some books about tinkering and artificing.

The vegetarian menu is vast, and very good.

The runner returns as we are stuffing more food in our pockets to take with us.

Ahleqs is delighted to see Mr Pickles in the Necessarium; he’s talking to a green dragonborn. Ahleqs doesn’t want to interrupt so he hops from foot to foot until the Al Miraj spots him. He is bidden to go over so Mr Pickles can take a look at him.

Mr Pickles says Ahleqs looks a little green around the gills; did he not hear about the revels last night, Ahleqs asks? Mr. Pickles was in the library having discussions. Should he order some tea? Yes, Ahleqs will have a small bucket of tea. Mr Pickles summons an Avowed.

Mr Pickles says there are wards on this place to cut noise and prevent eavesdropping from outside; he has some news for us if we will gather around.

An Avowed brings Kessler the books she asked for. (Carl wants some books too; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, A Tiger Came to Tea, The Borrowers, that sort of thing.)

MP introduces us to Bookwyrm, the First Reader of Candlekeep - the dragonborn he was talking to. He is in charge of maintaining the collection and acquiring newbooks. We want access to books about the Shadow Weave?

The knowledge in there is dangerous, those books have been locked away. They don’t usually let people access them, but since Mr. Pickles is involved, he might be able to help - if we can do something for him in return.

Ardvack has a question; is this endeavour going to cut into our ten-day? No, since we will be out of the Candlekeep to do it. Bookwyrm can’t give us details until we agree to help, but Mr. Pickles believes it’s well within the limits of our skills to accomplish what he needs.

Tarragon agrees immediately, but mostly because Ardvack looks dubious. Ahleqs, assured by Mr. Pickles’s confidence that we can do whatever it is we’re being asked, also agrees.

Some time ago, Bookwyrm tells us, the keep was visited by a drow scholar who told them the location of a book the Keep have been seeking. Are we familiar with the caves below the Keep? No, but we’ve seen a picture.

They are beneath the catacombs, in the bedrock. They lead all the way to the Underdark. The book was supposed to be there. Someone went in search of it; a more than capable wizard, Olius Visk, but they were expecting him back a full ten-day ago and he has not been heard from. He is a young man, it is very out of character for him to miss the Midsummer Festival.

What was the title of the book he was after? Bookwyrm doesn’t know. When the wizard applied to go after it, he didn’t mention which one it was.

Where is the drow? He left, as you can only spend a tenday here. He did not book in another visit.

We just need to rescue the wizard, not necessarily complete his mission, Bookwyrm says. If we do locate the book then we could bring that too. It’s not the Underdark proper, it’s not that far down - it and the wizard will be in the Upper Dark.

The First Reader gives us a book about the Underdark. Tarragon gets excited about the fungus that could be down there, and the potions she could make with them.

Will we need any further resources? Healing potions, at the very least.

When we are ready we’ll be teleported to the caves. We can get past the myconids that way, the ones that moved in and live off the mushrooms they grow on the refuse from the keep; they keep the drow and duergar away.

He gives us an orb to follow; Ardvack suggests giving Gideon the ring the activate the thing. While following Olius’ tracks, it will glow brightly to show us we are going the right way. Gideon blusters about the ring; “A fine piece of brass work! That will fit on my finger nicely.”

How many potions will we need? Tarragon, immediately: “All of them.”

They can spare a GHP and two RHPs - each. Oooo! They will give us twenty days’ of rations as well.

Can Carl come? We need Carl, probably more than Ardvack. Ardvack consults his book of manners, then laughs; “Ahahah, very droll.”

We decide to leave Popcorn in the stables while we go; he doesn’t like dark and scary places.

Tarragon is excited to be going into danger again; Ahleqs less so.

Ardvack, resignedly: “To almost certain death?”

Tarragon, far too excited: “To almost certain death!”

Ahleqs does a very shaky sigh.

A runner approaches with our Healing Potions, and we spend ten minutes farting about with our inventories.

Ardvack, bored, pulls a book from his pocket and begins to read; Ahleqs wants to know what it is.

Matthew, OOC: “What languages do you speak?”

Duncan: “Common, Elvish, Infernal and Light Crossbow.”

Are we all ready? Various themes on ‘yeah’, some more excited than others. Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.

Carl is brought from the Hearth (holding a book called ‘Ye Olde Very Hungry Caterpillar’), and we are teleported.

It takes a moment for our eyes to adjust when we arrive in the dark, wet caves. We head deeper underground, and of course someone (Mina) starts singing Jamiroquai. Well, someone had to.

Tarragon looks out for mushrooms for use in her recipes. There are lots, of various sizes. Some have bits that look like they’ve been cut off; as if someone has been eating or harvesting them.

Tarragon takes a bit of mushroom and eats it; it’s tasty. Ahleqs will watch her for about 45 minutes before he eats any himself. Ardvack stands as far as physically possible from all of the fungus.

Joe waits for his computer before telling us what has befallen Ardvack, who has gone ahead; Tarragon starts cackling. (She doesn't do subtly devastating insults, she does this.)

Matthew rolls a d4; he gets a 3. Does 16 hit him? “I think the 8 might do it.” The 16 does hit as he backs away from one mushroom into a violet fungus, for 8 Necrotic damage.

We roll initiative!

Melaina kills the fungus, but we don’t feel as though we’re alone. Tarragon holds a Thorn Whip in case she sees something within 30 feet of her that she doesn’t like, and warns Ardvack that this includes him.

We hear something shuffling towards us. Ahleqs is trying to hide when it attacks him twice for ten necrotic damage, and Tarragon gets it with her Thorn Whip. Ahleqs does Burning Hands at it.

Joe, laughing: “Really? You’re going to make a mushroom do a Dex save??”

He misses the one he was aiming at but hits the one he didn’t know was there, so… a win?

More turn up; Gideon does an Acid Splash, complete with quavery wizard voice as he announces it.

Ahleqs and Ardvack are closest and get a horrible, acrid stench as the acid burns the violet fungi.

A fungus aims at Ahleqs but only manages to sort of caress his face with its tentacles, leaving a slimy residue; he sicks up all the water he drank.

Kessler gets one with her crossbow. “Remove your grubby bits from the Ahleqs!”

Tarragon, yelling “Danger and excitement!”, takes out her quarterstaff and runs at one; she hits, and is pleased when it doesn’t die just yet.

Does Ardvack want to chomp on a tentacle with someone else, do a sort of lady and the tramp manoeuvre?

Duncan, disgusted: “No tentacle sucking, this is not that kind of show!”

Mina, disconcertingly matter-of-fact about it: “Some people would pay good money for that.”

Ardvack chooses to hit the thing with his shillgjakjsgaklghjkghhhjbblhh instead. It crumbles into bits, but is also ‘a little bit on fire’.

Ahleqs spots some little orbs somewhere ahead up the path. He thinks they are probably magic, but has no idea what they are or what they do.

Carl does a ‘friendly yet violent pat’ on one of the violet fungi and does 5 splatting damage. It wraps its tentacles around him - and then lets go, shuddering. Carl goes in for a bonus action grapple-slash-fatal-hug. The fungus loses the grapple. “High point in Carl’s life.”

Sophie, OOC: “Are you going to give it a noogie?”

Ahleqs takes aim at the grappled fungus. Matthew, OOC, singing: “Now that’s fuckin’ teamwork!”

“If I move away they’ll get a tickle of opportunity won’t they?” Ahleqs stays where he is. “I do not consent to this.”

Gideon gets one with Magic Missile.

Joe: “How de do dis?”

Sophie, OOC: “With gusto!”

Carl maintains his grip on the fungus.

Melaina is feeling arrogant so she goes Sharpshooter. “Urgh, five, that’s not going to work is it?” But to her amazement, it does. 29 damage; a little bit overkill. It explodes into truffle oil, which showers Ardvack but completely avoids Tarragon.

Tarragon offers Carl her old quarterstaff, since he doesn’t have a weapon. He rolls an INT check to try and reply to thank her, but gets a 0. He accepts the staff with a nod of thanks; she smiles at him.

We have killed all the Violet Fungi! We have solved Joe’s Underdark puzzle, yay!

Yeah, nah.

The drift globe leads us around the next corner. Tarragon and Carl chase it, and see three little huts made of fungus and dried grass. Two look abandoned, but the third has light inside. The orbs Ahleqs saw seem to be drifting around it. Ahleqs rolls 19 Arcana; the orbs are warding or protection magic.

We decide to approach, because the inhabitants might know something about the missing wizard.

Kessler, approaching: “Helloooooo? Avon calling?” Tarragon casts Guidance on her as she goes by.

A bell sounds; Kessler recognises the Alarm spell. She calls out to say she doesn’t mean any harm. “Ignore the mech armour, and the idiots with me…”

Duncan OOC: “I want to know what happens if we find the ‘How not to be a goblin’ book and Kessler turns out to be a six foot five valkyrie warrior. Ardvack’s not going to know where to put himself, is he?”

An Unknown Woman appears from the hut:

“What on earth are you doing down here?”

Kessler explains about the wizard and the book. Are we from the Keep?

Yeah…

So is she, it turns out. Will we be going back? Yes, unless we’re killed horribly.

Do we have a way to get back in past the myconids and such? (uh oh.) She says she was a speaker for the keep and was looking for some books, and got lost down here and got stuck.

Kessler rolls Insight with Guidance - 13. She seems convinced. We can pick her up on the way back? That would be amazing, she says. She’s smiling especially at Ardvack.

She has some warding magic up here if we want to rest? Ardvack tenses up. He makes an Insight check as well. He rolls a 9, but uses his Inspiration to re-roll - a 12. He feels a kind of kinship with her, as though her magic might have a similar source. He eases a little bit, and ventures a half smile, even though she’s wearing a 'very low-born outfit'.

Ahleqs, scandalised: “She can’t even afford a middle bit on her top!”

We don’t need a rest, do we? Ahleqs got hit a bit. Melaina doesn’t trust her, and doesn’t want to stop.

Tarragon asks the woman’s name. It’s Ava.

We could take a short rest, roll some hit dice? Have a sandwich? Get to know the locals?

Melaina: “Alright, but I’m not going to sleep.”

Ava points out the orbs. Anything on this side of them is safe.

This seems a bit too good to be true. Does Ahleqs get a sense of magic, other than the protective field? A nine; “She seems legit.”

She was looking for a book that the Keep wouldn’t exactly approve of when she got stuck here. She’s been living off the mushrooms. She was fleeing undead when she was chased into the myconid hives? A ghost or wraith or something.

She brings us some tea, apologising that it’s not quite as fresh as she would like. Something is definitely fucky; Tarragon takes watch, on Ava as much as for other dangers. Tarragon rolls 24 Perception, so she can see the colonies of ants coming to get us.

She sees that no-one’s quite at ease. Suddenly Ava’s skin sloughs off, peeling in big chunks, and a blood hag reveals herself.

Me, horrified: “Blood hag?? JOE!” Tarragon Thorn Whips her.

A writhing mass of hair bursts from the hag, and reaches out toward Ahleqs. She reaches out with her claws to Ardvack and Kessler, and hits both. 23 slashing to Ardvack - and 35 slashing to Kessler.

We roll initiative!

Melaina gets in amongst the mushrooms and tries to hide. “And now I’m going to shoot her in the face. Shit. No I’m not, with a ten.” She cowers behind her mushroom.

Gideon Thunderwaves her and hits, and retreats.

Tarragon casts Greater Shillsdghksdfkhsdg, and crit-misses. The quarterstaff bounces off and hits her in the face - she takes half the weapon’s damage and has Disadvantage on her next attack.

Carl hits her with his new quarterstaff and hits!

Ahleqs casts Mage Armour on Ardvack and Carl, using Sorcery Points to twin the spell.

Kessler bonus action slams her Greater Healing Potion. She uses her Thunder Gauntlets and forces Disadvantage on attacks not against her.

The Blood Hag uses something called Call the Blood, to do a Blood Choke Curse on Ardvack - his mouth fills with blood, preventing speech and verbal spell casting components for one minute. She uses her bonus action to Misty Step to Melaina and do another blood drinking hair, and a claw attack on her.

Ardvack’s turn; he riffles through his spells but they all have a verbal component. Matthew OOC, cross: “I needed that to be effective.”

Joe, pleased: “She’s charming, isn’t she? I thought you’d like her. But at least all the blood vessels in your mouth and throat have burst and you’ll keep having to spit blood for the next minute, so that’s something.”

Ardvack clubs her instead, and hits. He somehow manages to do 0 damage.

Duncan, OOC: “If you say ‘good girl’ or something while you attack, you could do some psychic damage…?”

Matthew: “If only I could speak!”

Melaina gets sneak attack plus Sharpshooter with her rapier - 31 points of damage. All of us, fanning ourselves: “… Damn.”

Gideon will cast Scorching Ray - all three bolts hit, for 21 damage total. The blood hag is pissed off, now, we are told. Gideon bravely retreats.

Tarragon misses again, and begrudgingly heals Ardvack. “Come on, it’s not that bad. Get up.”

Carl was going to use his Raging Cadaver ability, but Tarragon is now in the square he was going to rage to. He can probably navigate through the mushrooms. He does that, and then a slam attack. He does a zombie grab as well. He rolls 17 to her 14, so she’s grappled!

Ahleqs casts Shatter right in the huddle of Carl, Charity, Tarragon and the blood hag. But he would hit Carl, so he doesn’t. He does Eldritch Blast with Tides of Chaos and hits both times for 7 total Force damage.

55: His hair falls out again. “Oh… this again. Okay. I mean I was growing that, but whatever.”

Kessler wants to know if the mushrooms are difficult terrain; she can push through them. “I haven’t finished with you yet!” 16 with the Thunder Gauntlets hits for 12 Thunder damage, then 19 to hit for 11 more. The hag has Disadvantage on attacks versus anyone but Kessler.

Carl is surprised when the hag Misty Steps out of his grip. “He is very perplexed.”

Does 26 hit Ardvack? Er… Yes. He takes 24 piercing damage, and is grappled; her hair worms dig into his flesh and start to suck his blood. He makes a Dex save - or he would, but he might be dead…? No, he’s at 1HP. His lucky hit point.

Matthew is fighting his computer. “Dex save… Any minute now… It’s coming… I’ve pressed the button… It’s asked me if I want to make it public… seven.”

Joe has devastating news for him. The hag has reached out and torn his face off.

…

Holy Fuck.

What the fuck???

“I wanted the pretty elf, but this will have to do!”

The hag makes good her escape as Ardvack goes down. Tarragon uses a free action to vomit.

Ardvack has an ability that brings him back with 8HP. “Dhidth hwe huin?”

Melaina shoots the hag in the back but misses; Gideon does a Scorching Ray.

There’s discussion about the face and the fact that it has Ardvack’s memories and personality; Mina, OOC: “Give it a few minutes, she’ll bring it back.”

Duncan, as the hag: “‘Can you take this back, it’s kinda bumming me out’.”

Tarragon does Cure Wounds at the highest slot available to her; Ardvack’s face is now a mass of scar tissue. She uses her bonus action to throw up again.

This is worse than when Wee Jock got Disintegrated. This is worse than the time we were all zombies, and we started off dead.

Joe, put out: “You’re so ungrateful. It took me ages to find this monster.”

Carl can reach the nasty lady. He can Dash, but he can’t do anything when he gets there. He holds out his hand for Ardvack’s face. She ignores him.

Ahleqs: “Okay… Okay… I cast Fireball. Oooh, it’s big!” He casts it at level 4, and places it so he’ll get the hag, but not Carl. The hag must make a Dex save. She gets a 22.

Duncan, OOC: “Well… Yes, she does and she doesn’t.” She takes half the damage, and is really pissed off.

Kessler: “Oi! Come back with that!” She pulls out her crossbow and shoots. First shot is a miss, and so is the second - a crit fail. Booh. Off target: You deal half damage for 1d4+1 rounds (3). She tries to intimidate the hag, who is unimpressed.

“Let me leave, or I’ll cast Cloudkill.” The bitch uses Invisibility.

Ardvack’s turn; he is now un-stunned, and remembers the sensation of having no face. He’s also still spitting blood. He takes out the mirror that Amelia gave him, and looks in it to see the horrible-ness that is his face, still drooling blood. He puts the mirror away. He gives Tarragon a pat of thanks on the shoulder as he turns away so no-one can see him and crawls toward the hut, “Because this is where I live now.” Even Tarragon feels a little sorry for him.

Before we go, Ardvack is crawling into one of the huts, yes? Yes. "I do not wish to take tea with guests." The most complete hut is the hag’s one; he sees some stones on the floor as if she’s been scrying. Next to them is a pebble with a purple ring on it.

He makes an Arcana check on it to make sure it’s not a bum-stealing stone. 21; he knows the mark as the symbol of Shar. He may remember Shar from such activities as fighting a giant scorpion and an assassin, or raising an army of scarecrows to harass a halfling village.

We decide to leave it on that cliffhanger...

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary #Youtube

[thetradeway]

Session 47 7 Aug 2021: Black eyes, bloody nose, broken glasses, but he’s up there

Joe has been doing some housecleaning in roll20, so everything should be easier to find. Yay! I’m taking Kessler as Mina is away, and Matthew and Sophie are taking Gideon for now.

“Dammit Carl you have 49HP, why aren’t you a better zombie shield?”

We are on the path approaching Candlekeep. We see lots of other people also on the path; they are spaced out. This is so that the people nearest the gate can be asked questions by the guards without the people overhearing the answers, according to a smug Ardvack.

We make Perception checks; Tarragon and Ahleqs notice a tiny shape darting in and out among the people; as we look closer, we see that it’s a squirrel. It darts up to the group ahead of ours, and we hear a high pitched voice. Then it approaches us - its a red squirrel with tufted ears. It addresses Tarragon. (Ahleqs, excited: “Do you know Mr. Pickles?”) It scurries forward and produces a rolled scroll of birch bark, and thrusts it at her.

Tarragon produces a nut from her pocket to give it as thanks.

So Tarragon will be joining Dana and Shimmer for a midsummer celebration. (Today is midsummer, which is celebrated across the realms. We all have different experiences and types of celebration with which we are familiar.) Tarragon knows in gnomish society there is a festival called Highforge, where gnomes make and sell little contraptions. She also knows that the followers of Timora, the halfling goddess of luck, believe midsummer is a night for mischief and romance.

Ardvack was here for a Candlekeep Midsummer before - it’s like a festival with entertainers and bards and so on. He also remembers Waterdeep Midsummers as 'gaudy and unpleasant'. He was never invited to the Candlekeep ones, because he is gaudy and unpleasant.

Most of the others' memories of previous Midsummers involve viewing it as a time for love and courtship.

(At the mention of romance at the Halfling Midsummer, Ahleqs hunches a little bit as if to pretend he’s a really tall halfling. A dire halfling, if you will.)

Ahead of us, more than half the people queueing to get in to Candlekeep are turned away. We have a book that we are hoping will get us in; we all have forgotten who’s got it and there’s a few moments of fluffing while we find it in our inventories. Ahleqs finds it eventually - it’s the Tome of Bindings.

Usha is looking nervous. She is looking at the book that she’s brought. Ardvack asks her what her book is; it’s a collection of folk tales from her tribe.

As we get closer to Candlekeep we get a better look at it, and Ardvack tells us some stuff about it. We hear a faint chanting; according to Ardvack, the monks constantly chant prophecies.

Gathered by the gates are five figures in purple robes; these are the Avowed. They will interview each of us, and cast spells on us to see our intentions. They also use the Message spell. (Ahleqs casts Mage Armour.) We can stay for one tenday if we are admitted, and may not return within the same month.

We start hurriedly whispering to each other to get our story straight. Tarragon is here looking for a book that will help her cure her sister; the High Druidess told her there was a book here that belonged to Ethan Mahoni (sp?) who was an expert in magical sicknesses. This is his notebook she's looking for here in Candlekeep.

There is also a Mr Pickles related appointment - he will meet us here looking for information on the Shadow Weave. And definitely nothing else, Ardvack adds. Yup, that’s it, that’s for sure everything we’re here to do. No secret missions here, no sirree.

The party in front of us are turned away. One of the monks approaches us and asks what brings us here. We shove Ahleqs forward. He stumbles, can’t quite make eye contact. He clears his throat. “… Hellooo… Is Mr Pickles in?”

The monk looks at him. “Mr. Pickles?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Wait one moment.” He goes back to the monks and has a quiet word, then comes back to ask if Mr Pickles is expecting us. Ahleqs shows him the medallion that lets him summon Mr. Pickles. “We’ve got a book, alright?” He produces the book. “Feel the quality of that. Takes a pet, no praaaahblem.”

He makes a Persuasion check, with assistance from Ardvack. 11 total. We wait while Duncan tries to remember if he can use a Sorcery point to add a d4. He can, but he has to use two. “Finnnnneeee…”

12 total. The monks are amused by this pathetic persuasion attempt. They take the book and say they’ll check to see if they have it. Are we willing to submit to magical screening? Ardvack leans around Ahleqs and says he is technically an employee. What’s his name? (Timothy P. Fuckapple may make an appearance, if they don’t like Ardvack Darkspire.)

Do any of us (apart from Ardvack) have any intentions of robbing artefacts, causing trouble? (Kessler might. If she does, it won’t be premeditated so that won't get flagged.) Melaina is only likely to steal to order, she isn’t probably interested in just taking stuff in hopes that she will be able to sell it.

The monk comes back and says that Ardvack is on the records, but from 200 years ago.

“There was… oooh, an accident?” He was on a quest of discovery for the keep in a beholders’ lair, and it went quite badly wrong. Are there any elves here who might remember...?

The monks cast their spells on us. Then they come back; there’s an issue. Our book has been accepted, and none of us but Ardvack have bad intentions toward this place. The Darkspire family are friends of the Keep, and he was under their employ. The party are welcome here, but the Avowed believe he has bad intent. Ahleqs whips around with a ‘care to explain’ face and stares at Ardvack, who blusters.

He admits that he might bear a bit of a grudge after the botched mission. He demands to see the manager.

The monks are willing to allow him in to the Court of Air, if we keep an eye on him and if he submits to being watched by the Avowed. Ardvack goes purple. Melaina offers to muzzle him.

(Is there a BOBS list, and is his picture on it? We could send it to his dad.)

Are these terms agreeable?

Ardvack, turning deeper shades of purple with every passing second: “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFINE!”

(So he was on his very first mission, and he biffed it so badly that 200 years have passed? Ardvack huffs.)

He is welcome as long as we treat the books with the proper care and respect. We are to be allowed to get at the books tomorrow, after the festival.

We pass through the Arched Gates to find the Midsummer festival being set up in the courtyard. Ahleqs starts looking for a little model of the Candlekeep as a souvenir.

We approach the Emerald Door. There is a figure in purple robes. “Welcome to Candlekeep. What are your names?” We give them. He calls a runner to show us to our quarters. We are to be given food and board during our stay here. Also, we don’t have to count today against our tenday, as it’s the Midsummer Festival.

We are led to the Hearth; it’s kind of a feast hall. There used to be an inn, but this replaced it. (For Ardvack it’s like going back to his old university and they’ve demolished the Student Union bar and put a Starbucks in its place.)

Winthrop is the bartender; he’s a little crude, describing the rooms as being 'clean as an elf's arse', but the prices are good. The monks shows us on to the House of Rest. Our rooms are simple and clean, well appointed.

Ardvack makes an Insight check after Ahleqs suggests he might want to bunk in with some of us. Anyone who might look out for Ardvack’s interests can do the same. (Tarragon does not.) Gideon thinks that if Ardvack tries to go off and be in a room by himself with Carl, the Avowed might go in to keep an eye on him.

Tarragon will bunk in whichever room Ardvack isn’t in; it ends up girls in one room and boys in the other - but the girls are getting a boy roommate. A little gnome introduces himself as Bilfiz Backlotos. The boys are in with a halfling barbarian called Gutpunch MacKenzie. Ardvack goes for an awkward head pat but stops short.

It’s around mid morning, and we can hear the bards start to play in the courtyard. Stepping out of our quarters, we see that the festival is getting underway. Drinking is already starting. There are people dancing, and stalls and games. We can make Investigation checks. There are knights jousting on horseback, and flyers saying that onlookers can take part if they wish. (There are clerics, and it won’t be as brutal as the real event.) There are magic contests and an archery tournament, something called Hang Five which is a team event involving a strange frame with sticks sticking out of it. There are also ads for an extreme pie-eating contest. Some events can be entered as a team. Teams who score the top points will compete in a tug of war to be crowned champions of the festival.

What should our team name be?

“Wee Carl and the Carlettes?”

We fluff around trying to think of a team name. Carl might have something, if he can communicate it to Ardvack. He writes down his suggestion and hands it to the person he deems the leader of the group - who is Kessler. “The Best Friends”.

Well that’s that settled then.

Tarragon queues to register our team name. She makes a Perception check - she sees the Avowed have put together a team, and another group of adventurers registering as The Slayers, and a thirds group (that she thinks is quite obnoxious) who’ve named themselves as “The Heroes of the Realm”. Tarragon snorts.

She puts herself down for the pie eating contest, and makes a note to sign Ardvack up for the jousting. Ahleqs might have a go at the magic contest. He must have one of two cantrips, which he doesn’t have, so he signs up for the pie eating instead. Gideon might go for the magic contest, and so will Tarragon. (Ardvack does too, to Tarragon’s annoyance.)

Kessler and Melaina will have a go at the archery. A few will have a go at the jousting.

We start with the archery. Kessler lets Melaina go first. She starts 40 yards from her target, and has twelve arrows she can fire. She makes 12 attack rolls, and will get a score for each one. Melaina does well, but Kessler does amazingly, and takes a little bow to the applauding crowd. Go Team The Best Friends!

Ardvack and Tarragon are each given a candle for the magic contest. Highs or lows? Ardvack chooses highs. Joe rolls a 5. Tarragon has to roll a d6, and Joe laughs. She ends up facing off against Ardvack; this should be interesting.

We enter into a ring, still holding the candles. Tarragon goes first, and rolls a 16 total. Divided by 2 is 8; that’s 8 D6s. Ardvack does the same and ends up with 3 D6s.

We use our magic to light the candle, but we have to extinguish our opponent's candle. Each participant rolls 2d6 from our pool. These are publicly known. (Roll in the chat) Tarragon 6 and 2, Ardvack 4 and 5. Tarragon puts her 6 on the attack. We then decide how many of our remaining dice to put on attack and defence, and declare the totals at the same time.

By the skin of his teeth Ardvack extinguishes Tarragon’s flame, because she put everything on her attack leaving nothing to her defence.

Tarragon has 7 d6 for round two; Ardvack has two. She beats him handily; her candle doesn’t even flicker, and she puts his flame out with ease.

Round three sees Tarragon with ten d6s and Ardvack has one; he blows out his candle and storms off. He tries to upend a table but doesn’t have the strength.

Tarragon is delighted.

Next we do the Hang Five - the team event.

Since Carl named the team (and we accepted him before we accepted Ardvack), we have Carl as our final member. Ahleqs goes after Ardvack, and mollifies him with beer before convincing him to come back.

(On drinks - there are halflings with alcoholic fruit syrups. A wizard is freezing water into ice and mixing it with the syrups. Delish!)

The weather is good so far; good, because it’s considered a very bad omen to have bad weather on midsummer.

The object of the game is to get all but two of our team members hanging on the board from the sticks that are poking out of it. We must throw each other. In the team kitty we have 1d12, 1d10, 1d8, 1d6 and 3d4s. One player must be thrown at a bar of the team’s choosing. They must hang on to the bar until five team members are hanging from the frame.

We are assigned a number for our weight, from one to three. The bars are spaced a foot apart from 8 to 12 feet high. We have 19 turns. We should choose who will stay on the ground and do the flinging.

Tarragon is strong but light, so she will help do the flinging and be the last person to be flung. She could Rage and get advantage, but she will need someone to punch her every so often. (Ahleqs reluctantly agrees to do this for her.)

We try to throw Carl onto the highest bar - we make it! He is in place! Next we throw Melaina to the next highest bar. We’ve only gone and bloody done it! Now Carl must make an Athletics check to see if he stays on his bar. He makes the check.

Now we fling Gideon at the ten footer; we fail very badly. He plops to the ground. (Ahleqs does Tides of Chaos, panicking, and is surrounded by faint ethereal music for one minute.)

We make another attempt to fling the Grease Wizard. This time we are only one point off; Gideon falls to the ground again. And again. Ahleqs does Tides of Chaos again, but it doesn’t help. Gideon falls again, and Kessler is helpless with laughter at this point. We try again. Carl and Melaina make their Athletics checks again.

Ahleqs, exasperated: “All we’ve got to do is throw a dwarf at a stick. How hard can this be?”

We miss again.

Melaina: “Is there anything I could cast to make this better?”

We miss again.

Oh boy. Gideon is starting to look like a butcher’s backpack.

We miss again. Ahleqs casts Mirror Image, from Tides of Chaos. Can the mirror image help us throw the dwarf? No.

Now Melaina and Carl fall from their bars, so we have to throw them back up as well. We miss with our first throw with Carl. Now we have nine turns left. We miss with Carl again.

We get Carl back up, yeah!

Okay, Melaina again next. The elf is up! Carl makes an Athletics check. He rolls low, but it’s enough.

Finally, we get Gideon up on the board! Black eyes, bloody nose, broken glasses, but he’s up there.

Five turns and two team members to go. We throw Kessler next, and she goes headfirst into the post and falls down. Carl falls from the bar.

We miss with Carl. Melaina falls from the bar with a nat 1, but Gideon clings on. (The joy of seeing Kessler plummet headfirst into the ground like a bullet spurs his strength.)

We get Carl back up again.

We fling Tarragon and miss. She gets a split lip, but it continues her Rage. She is laughing when she hits the ground. Carl gets a nat 20 on his Athletics check to remain clinging on to the bar; he is doing eyelid-ups.

We get Melaina on the board on the second to last turn. Carl and Gideon repeat their athletics checks. We could get one more on…?

We decide to lob Ardvack on the last turn as he’s only a slip of a boy. We turn to look at him in unison and then advance on him. We have already thrown him before we realise he was rolling the d12 for the strength checks. He sails through the air before face planting on the crash mat.

At the end of the game, we are the highest scoring team to fail the challenge. Yay…?

Duncan: “That is probably the best thing that Ahleqs has done in his life. That he has evidence of.”

We hand Gideon to the clerics on our way out of the ring. He’s a little concussed and isn’t exactly sure where he is.

Just jousting and the pie-eating. (Tarragon has added Ardvack’s name to the list for the jousting.)

The knights have been doing displays for show throughout the morning. The pageantry part is over for now, and they’re ready to start the actual jousting. Ahleqs remembers a pub conversation about affecting a horse’s performance by putting ginger in its bum; but he can’t remember if it makes them faster or slower.

Melaina, Carl, Tarragon, Kessler, (and Ardvack) have a go; Ahleqs decides it looks too terrifying. Melaina chooses Ardvack (who is hurried into a tent shouting ‘what?’) as her opponent. She will be provided with armour and a horse. They get three passes. They roll initiative, adding their initiative bonuses plus their animal handling bonuses. Melaina beats him, but not by enough to have advantage. They roll a d20, plus animal handling plus athletics.

Melaina scores a point by whacking him right in the chest.

Ardvack, wheezing: “I don’t remember signing up for this!”

Ardvack hits Melaina on the second pass, but Melaina shatters her lance and almost unseats him, scoring five points to his one.

Melaina scores poorly on initiative for the third pass, but he barely rolls better than her. Melaina hits him but he misses her; she has trounced him. Ardvack stomps off throwing bits of armour around. The crowd laughs.

Two tiny knights arrive on two tiny horses, and I play d&d with myself for half an hour.

Tarragon and Kessler tie the first round, scoring a point apiece. It’s tiny and adorable and everyone loves it.

Kessler wins the second pass. They are on 2-1 to Kessler.

Tarragon gets Advantage on her attack roll for the third pass. Kessler wins the third round in spite of it, shattering her lance. Kessler wins 7-2.

No sooner do we leave the stable, than a gong sounds for the pie eating contest, the main event!!

People start queueing in the pie eating tent. Our roommates are participating in this event, as well as a robust Avowed, the Dragonborn from the Slayers, and the smug looking half elf from the Heroes of the Realm.

Gideon, Ahleqs and Tarragon all take part (Ahleqs has loosened his belt and is doing preparatory lunges and stretches), but the others don’t. Ardvack is still sore; he’s had a horrible day.

Ahleqs makes an Insight check on the chef who brings in the pies; his name is Ogizax the Unpredictable. (Uh oh.) Ahleqs feels a kinship with him; he seems to be a magic user.

We start making CON saves. The DC will increase as we go. We have to roll d100s also, to see if the pies were normal or... not. Gideon has eaten a normal, delicious pie, as do Ahleqs and Tarragon. Four of our opponents have dropped out. The pies were delicious this round as well.

The gnome swallows his pie and he belches blue smoke. His belly swells to twice its size. The halfling’s belly starts yelling at him. Huh.

DC is 9; we all make it. Gideon disappears - his pie has teleported him to a location within five miles, and he is disqualified.

Tarragon crams the pie in her pie hole, only for it to evaporate; the DC for her does not increase for the next round. Nice!

Tarragon crit fails and pukes up all her pie. She’s not mad about it. Ahleqs uses Tides of Chaos, and disappears to the ethereal plane for six seconds. Luckily no-one notices because Tarragon is upchucking on the table.

It’s down to Ahleqs and the halfling; Ahleqs catches his eye and gives him a thumbs up. He passes the CON save, as does the halfling. Both the pies were delicious normal pies. (Gideon returns to the tent in a puff of smoke, looking annoyed. He’s out, but they give him more pie anyway.)

Ahleqs is knocked out in the next round. Just as well because the pie had energy from another pie which would have imposed Disadvantage on the next round. The halfling wins, and Ahleqs comes in second.

Kessler won the archery contest so she gets a prize - 12gp and 103gp.

Ardvack makes a Perception check - at Advantage, as he used to work here. He gets an 8. Still, he notices a bookmark sticking out of Gutpunch’s belt. It casts Magic Mouth on a book, reading it aloud for him. (He has an Audible subscription!)

The Best Friends have scored the most points, but we still must compete in the tug of war against the Heroes of the Realm. Both teams congregate in the Court of Air. (Ahleqs wants to know if casting Charm Person on one of the other team counts as cheating.)

Ardvack is sulking so he won’t take part.

We roll Athletics checks, add the totals and divide by the number of participants. Winning team pulls the other five feet toward them. Winning team must win three times in a row, pulling the other team fifteen feet over the centre line.

We win the first round!

Ahleqs, straining: “I’m doing physical exercise!”

We win the second round as well!

Ahleqs: “We’re so fucking strong!”

We wait while Joe adds the scores - we won the third round! We pull them straight over the line, and are declared Champions of the Festival.

Ahelqs: “I hardly had to cheat!”

We pull from the loot chests again and are crowned Kings and Queens of Summer. We can also have any book (from the approved list) copied and bound for free to keep. !!!!!!!!

Matthew remembers about Usha; did she get in? Ardvack makes an Investigation check. With a 22 he can see her in the crowd, cheering for us. Yay!

By this time the sun is starting to go down. We all make Perception/Investigation checks; everyone spots a large shadow in the sky; it starts small and gets larger and larger. As it comes into focus, we see that it’s Fidget on his giant owl!

He walks towards us, carrying a big hamper. “‘Ello strangers!” he hands us the hamper, which is full of gifts from Halfstone Coppice and Finkletoog - jams, alcohols and the like - to thank us for saving Halfstone Coppice. He nods to Tarragon. “I believe you have somewhere to be? Your carriage awaits!” He points to the owl.

“Cool! I’ll see you guys later!”

The rest of them stay to watch the firework display, with more dancing and drinking.

We can set about our business here tomorrow. Ardvack gets tired of being watched by the Avowed, and goes to bed in a huff.

Duncan: “I think that’s the first thing I’ve won in my life. That’s not Ahleqs saying that, that’s me.”

#dnd #thetradeway #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session 4 31 Jul 2021

Ed will be absent for a while; he’s doing other stuff…

Leslie was leading us into Right Ruddy Mysterious Johnson’s cave, which is inexplicably full of painted food that wants to be eaten. Then Leslie translated something into food-speak for us; Ren wanted to ask them how many more foods there were, as he was beginning to get indigestion. This seemed to upset the food, which then started to fight back. Leslie said it seemed to have realised that it had made a mistake. We still don’t know why they have changed their minds.

We were on Ren’s turn when we called it for the week. So… I will take Pilfer, as Sophie and Joe’s computers are both struggling.

Matthew will let us in on a secret - we should be rooting for ourselves, most deffo. (Joe wasn’t sure.) All the food we’ve eaten so far has been baddies. Oh, well that’s okay then.

Ren is being borne down on by a food wielding a scimitar. It’s a self-service buffet! He’s brought his skewer for meats. He takes a poke with it. 17 hits, for 6 worth of spear right in the body.

Pilfer hucks his dagger at a food, and misses. The dagger hits the wall behind the food and skids down the hall a bit. Milo wants to throw a javelin; he might be able to aim it over the heads of his tall friends. He hits for 7 damage. A similar event happens to his target as the one that led to the predicament in which we found Bingo.

A food attacks Ren and very nearly obliterates his AC. He takes 3 damage in his blue torso.

Marcus dodges around the food out of the way of the others, and attacks the one Milo hit, killing it with his quarterstaff and begins to consume.

Cora comes up to the food attacking Ren and proceeds to tenderise it - 3 damage is enough and it’s ready for eats. Instead of consuming, however, she moves on.

Now Matthew, we say to ourselves, that’s all the baddies, surely that’s the end? Well, we are told, it wouldn’t be much of a dungeon crawl if that was all the baddies, now would it?

Hilda moves up; she can’t see any more walking food so she starts to eat. Ren’s turn, and he has been eating, but does not feel full. We do not feel full once we’ve eaten. He makes a Perception check - a 15. He hears more food from further down the corridor. It might be some sort of language, as he’s heard Leslie and Right Ruddy Mysterious Johnson using. They’re too stupid to learn Friends, obviously. Ren moves down the corridor a way.

Leslie brings up the rear; he will keep an eye out behind us. Bingo follows his lead and stares with a joyful slack-jawed expression.

Pilfer goes after his dagger but can’t get far enough to reach it, so he stops for a little snack on the way.

Milo goes for his javelin and grabs a handful of viscera pick n mix on the way. Highs or lows? He picks highs, and Matthew rolls an 84. He gets a delicious handful, falls right off the heart bone.

Marcus can’t see the cultists behind him, so he carries on chomping for his turn. Matthew, singing: “Yum, yum, yum yum yum, he’s eaten off his fingers.”

Cora goes down the corridor to investigate, using her dash - she’s fallen for Matthew’s trap! “My character’s a zombie. Everything is a trap.” As she comes around the corner, the food looses its held action in the form of a scimitar at her but misses, hitting the wall and going “PACHANG!” instead.

It’s Hilda’s turn. Did she hear the PACHANG? Almost definitely, it was like an action movie. Everything is turned up to 11. She looks up, Scooby Doo style, her mouth full of food. “Huh?” She moves down the corridor, but can only get to the other side of Milo, so she uses her dash to get just past Marcus as well. Highs or lows for food-grabbing? Highs, and Matthew rolls an 80. Definitely one of the delicious organs, though it’s best not to discuss exactly which one.

Ren springs into action! He also heard the PACHANG. He wants to dash, so he does.

Leslie and Bingo move up as well. Ren, idly: “Good old Bingo. Wonder who he was.”

Does 15 hit Cora? Yes. She takes 6 slashing damage from the cultist attacking her. “That’s half my hit points! That’s not nice!”

Milo’s turn, and he can still move through people’s spaces even though he’s a zombie, right? He doesn’t have the dexterity he used to, so other people are difficult terrain. He also dashes to get down the corridor.

Cora takes some more damage. Another cultist critically misses, and breaks his scimitar.

Marcus moves up, but holds an attack instead of dashing. He will protect Pilfer’s dagger, in case one of the cultists tries to go for it.

Cora takes an attack on one of the cultists - I mean food! 17 hits for 6 bludgeoning, with chunky bits of brain from her last food stuck in his teeth from her mace.

Hilda doesn’t want to get right up to them; can she chuck her hand axe? She’s taller than Milo, so she could huck it over his head. Sophie moves her a little too far on Roll20, and accidentally crushes Milo. Sophie, OOC: “Hey, everyone’s put on a little weight in the lockdown.” 23 hits right in their nobbly top bits for 9 slashing damage! Her axe picks up some speed as it flies down the stairs, and insta-kills one. Splits his face in two as the axe carries on right through. Sophie, proudly: “I opened him like a can of Pringles!” She gets Inspiration for it too.

Ren, top that! Duncan, OOC: “ Shan’t.” He moves up to one of the foods, and takes a biiiiiiiiiig poke with his spear -

“Right in the delicacies.”

Matthew, rolling his R’s: “GRRRRIM!”

Ren releases a lot of the internal juices. This one had been previously tenderised in the face with a mace and wasn’t looking too clever. Now with a spear in his right ear, and which exited his left ear, Ren now has some food on a stick. The attack was so good that the point of Ren’s spear is now almost touching the nose of the food behind, which is now re-evaluating its life choices. Ren gives his food a little monch.

Does a 13 strike Ren? “Yeah, it does! Stop it!” He takes 7 slashing damage from the food that snuck up behind him. He feels a little woozy now. The food behind him laughs, and swings its scimitar to try and decaptiate him, but Ren sees something shiny on the floor and bends down just as it swings, overreaches and lets go of its weapon.

This looks very much to Milo as if the food now wants to be eaten and has given up fighting. Milo moves down the stairs and pokes his javelin in its face. 12 is a hit! 5 piercing, and bonus action growls at it. “Verry good, Milo mah friend!” says the Frenchman in his head.

(I have accidentally deleted Pilfer’s token and removed him from the token order. Thought I was in TextEdit and hit backspace while in Firefox and with Pilfer’s token highlighted. Duncan: “It’s how he would have wanted to go; a clerical error!” Matthew puts him back for me.)

A food runs up to swing at Cora, slips in some of his friend, and misses. Another attacks - the one who lost his scimitar - now breaks his hand on the same wall.

Marcus runs up and crits with his quarterstaff. He has somehow managed to cut a man in half with a blunt object. He erupts into a cloud of bloody mist in front of Cora. There’s now a mountain of chum in that space.

It’s Cora’s go. She has a try at resetting the cultist’s hand with her teeth. Matthew, delighted: “Okay Doctor Death!” She misses, sadly.

Hilda wants to know where her hand axe is. Matthew pings it for her. She may have to race one of the foods for it. She wants to dash and get a bit closer to it.

Ren still has the best hit point, his lucky hit point, plus one more. He sees the food glancing at Hilda’s hand axe. Taking a potion is a bonus action so he does that, job one, and Duncan is annoyed to find there’s no macro for that in this game. He rolls dice for it instead, and gets 6HP back. He uses his action to skewer the food in front of him and crits! He turns with un-Friend like speed, and stuff spills out of this one. And that is everyone dead here.

Bingo and Leslie move into the room.

Pilfer runs up, compensating for a previous missed turn, and grabs his dagger. Matthew skipped Milo by mistake, so he goes now - he wants to chuck his javelin at the one that’s hiding. He can even come right on over and poke him in the pudding. He does that, and wiggles it around for 3 piercing damage.

This last food attacks Hilda but misses. Duncan, OOC: “And so ends his gap year.” (He gets Inspiration for that.)

Marcus wants to try his Greatsword; he doesn’t know he’ll be at disadvantage so he goes for it and misses very badly. Fortunately he also misses Hilda and Cora, more luck than judgement there. Marcus doesn’t think much of this sword.

Cora gives the guy a hug, aiming for the jugular. (Duncan OOC: “Ribena!”) 7 bludgeoning right in the neck.

We have killéd everything here, yay! We’re out of the turn order now. We roll Perception, and take a break while Matthew fixes whatever he did to his computer. With the scent of meals and food thick in the air, we continue, covered in viscera and gross. Those of us who rolled 10 or higher on Perception, either see or hear a commotion from down the corridor. Pilfer shouts, “Food!”

It is the same shout as when the food attacked last time. Leslie and Pilfer are pointing towards it. Cora and Ren take some potions from Marcus and Hilda. Leslie puts his finger to his carcass's lips, and whispers that he saw the food run down the corridor to the south of us. Hilda goes first. Bingo follows, excited at the prospect of more food. We follow, a turn’s worth of movement at a time.

We hear a shout ahead of us, and roll initiative. Bingo rolls higher than some of us for once!

Cora goes first. She moves up but can’t get close. Neither can Pilfer; he holds a dagger until a food comes within hucking distance. Leslie mumble-narrates his move to himself as he goes. He doesn’t want to wedge up the corridor.

Ren goes now. He moves up and sees the food and points it out to the rest of us. “We are like a small horde, aren’t we? Bingo, is this the sort of thing you imagined?” Bingo nods. It’s like a training horde. Still gives you that great sense of community without being too unwieldy for the first time horde-er. Horde-ist?

Bingo lurches out of the way of an attack, mostly by accident, maintaining his conversation with Ren. Bingo turns back to the food, excited, makes an over-excited slam attack and misses.

It’s Hilda’s go - she goes for a wallop with her Great club. DM: “Good choice.” Just your standard downward bonk. The food’s head explodes. (That food’s name was Alan, and he was on work experience.) Between Ren and Pilfer’s shoulders, Marcus sees a puff of red mist. He wonders what that was. Hilda grabs a snack.

“If you hit them hard enough, they express a sort of vinaigrette,” Ren muses.

Marcus uses his dash and elbows Ren and Pilfer out of the way - he sees more around the corner. He chortles about it to the others, causing Milo to do the same and dash toward the action. One of the foods is making a lot of noise, as the others parade about.

Cora’s up again. She also dashes, then sneezes. She can now also see the produce aisle. Wait - the deli counter. Pilfer moves up and leaps between Milo and Hilda, getting his dagger out ready for hucking.

A food attacks Marcus but misses. Marcus grins at it with his horrible zombie breath and gets Inspiration again. The food retches.

Ren has heard food happen, and a new one hoves into view, and there’s more in the corridor. He gets stuck in. He dashes to get up to the action, and is now food-adjacent.

The food down the corridor comes to take a bash at Cora but misses. Bingo has a mouthful of something indescribable, and Matthew plays D&D with himself for a moment. Bingo has prepped a food for us and it’s Hilda’s turn. She scrambles past Pilfer (DM: “The gangly drow who couldn’t stop a pig in a poke”) and does Greatclub at the one attacking Cora, as that worked so well last time, and crits for 15 damage.

Matthew, laughing: “That’s so unnecessary!” She swings her club in a semi-upward swing at about waist height. She’s sure she feels all the solid bits inside turn to liquid and his head-holes become a chocolate fountain of food-sauce.

Hilda, with concern: “Are you okay?”

Marcus has another go with the greatsword, now that he’s flanked with Hilda, and hits with an 18. It’s like the bit in 13 ghosts where the guy gets cut in half with a pane of glass. “I’ve got it working!”

Is that all of the food, Sophie wants to know. Matthew, sounding slightly sheepish: “…Nupe.”

Cora’s turn, as more food approaches from the south. She shambles closer and waits for the table service. Pilfer moves up and successfully hucks a dagger and hits a food square in the chest. It looks surprised.

Ren makes a successful Intelligence check and thinks that maybe this food is surprised by Friends (Leslie) that can speak its’ language; maybe we aren’t the Friends they were waiting here to intercept. Maybe that’s why they seemed to change their minds about letting us eat them. Have we been hoodwinked?

Bingo runs full pelt at the food, he wants to be near it, get amongst it. Marcus moves up, excited anew by the greatsword but unable to use it this turn.

“I fear zere will be a terrible conclusion to zis whole situation,” says the Frenchman. “I feel it in my lack of bones.” Can Milo feel anything wriggling around in his head? No, probably not. He throws a javelin at one of the foods with an 18. 6 damage. “I’on’t like it.”

Hilda’s turn. She joins the queue and throws her axe at the one with the javelin already in it. Sophie knows it’s not smart to throw her axe at this stage, but Hilda’s not smart. 24 would hit, but she’s at Disadvantage because she’s out of range. Sophie, rolling a SECOND 24: “Hahahaha!” Sadly that’s only 4 damage. It’s enough to prepare that particular food though.

A food slashes at Bingo, because he’s taken against him. Bingo takes 3 damage, but takes it well. Barely even notices.

Cora moves to tenderise a spleen. She winds up the snap, and - 17 hits for 4 bludgeoning. It’s enough, yeah! She has enriched the meal by rupturing exactly - wait, highs or lows? She goes highs, and Matthew gets a 93. Cora has ruptured all the correct organs and none of the bad ones, so the food won’t poison us like poorly prepared blowfish.

Pilfer hucks his smol hammer and is pleased with the 2 whole damage.

Backup food arrives, but its sword swings and embeds in the door, the hands continue around without it.

Leslie potters up next to Milo and offers an encouraging comment on his last turn.

Ren has a little think about what to do, nibbling on his swiped food, and runs up to stab at the food with a very reasonable 23 for 6 damage. Right in the flank. It makes a wheezing gasp as Ren’s spear pierces him in the side.

Another one runs up to bash Ren, but misses.

Bingo can’t move through Ren, so what Ren sees is two arms reach past him either side of his head to reach the food. He can’t reach it, but it’s the look of the thing as much as anything else.

Marcus can’t move, so he hordes it up and crowds in behind Bingo the way Bingo is crowding in behind Ren.

Milo comes up and can’t get through either, so he pings another javelin at the far end of the crush. 8 doesn’t cut it. But he has Inspiration, so he rolls again - a nat 1. In a similar move to mister 'I’ve lost my sword' but the javelin slips out of his bloody little paws and flies out behind him. He scuffs his feet, hoping nobody saw that.

Hilda definitely saw that. The DM will allow her to pick up Milo’s javelin if she uses it to attack. 24 to hit for 8 damage! While still dazed from Pilfer’s hammer throw, it’s enough of a javelin to the face that he’s dead. His head sinks back on the javelin with a squeaky sound of javelin on bone.

There is one food in front of Cora that’s still kicking, and another on a stick on the floor. She swings at the upright one and misses.

(Matthew gets a chilli seed in his lung and has to pause to die a bit.)

Pilfer moves up to the last food, sees his dagger in its chest, removes it and makes an attempt to reinsert it - but misses. The food grabs its scimitar from the door, and swings it at Pilfer and crits. Pilfer goes down! Oh no! He can’t make a CON save to come back to 1HP, because the damage was from a crit.

Ren readies his stabbin’ stick, and gets a 15 for 7 piercing damage, which is more than enough. This corridor is now heavy with dinners. We’re out of initiative; Marcus stuffs a potion down Pilfer’s neck and brings him back for 7 HP.

We look through the rooms around us off the corridor and find Ruddy’s bath. We’ve solved Matthew’s delicious food problem!

Leslie tells us there is still one direction we haven’t gone… We follow him back to the crossroads in the corridor, Bingo gets sidetracked eating things. He rushes to catch up and then rushes ahead - and gets hit in the guts by another food that arrives. (Joe, OOC: “Can someone make an animal handling check on Bingo?”)

We roll initiative…

Hilda goes first. She rushes down to the aid of Bingo and bashes with her Greatclub. 23 hits and kills the food. We are not out of initiative, however. Milo’s turn, and he can’t see any food. He dashes forward down the corridor. Marcus follows suit. Leslie moves up as well. Then ‘no-one important’ has a turn, and then Bingo.

Bingo pushes some of his guts back in and crimps the edges like a pasty. He opens the door to his left but there’s no food in the room beyond.

Cora’s turn is interrupted when Meemoo arrives unexpectedly in Matthew and Sophie’s living room with something she shouldn’t have; it turns out to be a bat. There’s a pause while they rescue it. Sophie is going to call the rozzers on her.

Right - Cora. She’s done some movement, and does a bit more in a dash.

Ren shoves past the traffic jam in an attempt to keep up with Bingo, and it's back to Hilda again. She scoots off ahead of Bingo and then Sophie gasps. That’s not good. She doesn’t know what she’s seeing and can’t describe it.

Milo: “Is it sweet or savoury?”

Hilda: “… Er, it looks flambéd.” She wishes we’d told Ruddy Rotten Whatsit to shove his caves full of food.

Milo runs as fast as his stubby little legs will carry him. “To hell with my javelins, I’ve got my teeth!” It turns out he would have re-equipped himself with his javelins. “Then who am I to argue!”

Pilfer runs up but can’t see anything; Marcus rushes as well, and he does see. He gets glowered at by the thing in the room, and feels that this day has taken a distinct turn for the worse. The food that we see looks ‘very ready’ for our assault. They also seem to be wearing clothes that might be a bit harder than the previous food.

Bingo gets overexcited again - he starts to run, seeing Hilda’s expression and thinking ‘ah, food!’, sees the things and goes ‘ah, something else!’

Cora’s go. She sees everyone get to the end of the corridor and go ‘oh shit’ so she considers turning around and shuffling off out of here. But Friends don’t leave Friends to die in corridors, so she dashes in too.

Ren bravely hides behind Hilda. (His Ahleqs is showing.) He sees into the room. Is that his turn? “…Yeah.”

Both the foods he can see are brandishing scimitars. The first two seem meatier than the last ones did. Matthew shows us the handout - well he tries, but it doesn’t work for anyone but Sophie so she takes a picture and puts it on the WhatsApp. (This is just like the time Matthew ruined Christmas by having mumps, Duncan tells us.)

It’s called The Servant, and it does a Sacred Flame at us. Bingo bursts into flames. He’s not dead, we’re assured. It might be his time, but it remains to be seen. There are literally bunches of Bingos out there, and that’s our fault. It’s the first time we’ve heard a Friend sound like he was in pain.

Then we hear: “If you’ve got another bat - ”

(It’s not, fortunately.)

Hilda’s turn. She throws her hand axe because she’s frightened. It’s out of range, but she gives it a go anyway, aiming for the northerly of the two beasties at the doorway.

Milo has not seen what’s around the corner, but he saw the light from when Bingo went up. He climbs onto Marcus’ shoulders, using his last five feet. Marcus is cool with this. Marcus can’t wait to see where this is going.

How much does Milo’s equipment weigh? 42lbs. Marcus is carrying 80 extra lbs now. It wouldn’t put him over encumbered, but there may be some penalties. He dashes as far as he can. Which target is Milo going for?

Go big or go home. He takes aim at the big evil bastard but misses. Go home it is.

DM: “… ‘Go home’ may not be an option here.”

Pilfer comes forward and holds an action until something comes within huckin’ range.

Leslie does a dash. Bingo looks a bit scared. He’s hungry, but he’s a bit scared now. We’ve just eaten like twelve cultists, but he’s hungry. He doesn’t want to go back, but he’s reluctant to move forward.

Cora’s turn. She is still debating coming around the corner. “… Still can’t see anything, so that’s all - OH MY GOD WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT??” She puts herself between Bingo and the enemies.

Ren’s turn. He dashes, but stays out of the way.

The sentries in the doorway hold their ground. The big bastard does a sacred flame at Cora - she makes a DEX save, and fails.

Ren: “I’m starting to think that Bloody Tasty Johnson knew about this.”

Cora doesn’t remember pain, but she’s in it now and it’s a new and unpleasant experience. She feels like the bald food pointing his finger has issued some kind of decree to his minions.

Hilda can’t get very far unless she dashes. So she does.

Milo starts to climb down until Marcus offers to fling him; he stops and prepares to be flung. Marcus rolls bad, even when he uses his Inspiration to re-roll. It turns out that 80lbs is a bit heavier than he was anticipating, so he puts Milo down in front of him and groans about his back.

Milo successfully argues that he should be allowed to make his attack since he was preparing to be thrown and was instead gently placed. He flings his javelin at one of the sentries and hits.

Pilfer moves up and hucks a dagger. “Have at you!” 14 hits for 3 piercing. Sophie offers to take Pilfer for me, as her computer seems to be running more smoothly now.

It’s Leslie’s turn. We hear some mouse clicks, and Bingo goes for it. “To death or glory! Probably the first one!” He lands a hit! Good job Bingo. He’s still looking pretty rough.

Cora does a slam attack but it misses. Ren moves up and attacks diagonally, and takes down one of the minions. He plays a tiny riff on his lute. The other one moves up and retaliatory stabs him; Matthew has found the ‘DM win’ button, because that’s a crit. He’s still up! "Those were my softest regions."

We are about to “suffer at the hands of this, my finest thing.” That doesn’t sound good. Duncan lodges his displeasure in the strongest terms. Ball-bag looses his Spiritual Weapon on us. It attacks Cora, but 9 misses her. Bingo is attacked and taken some damage, giving another blood-curdling scream, but he’s still up.

Hilda is up. She takes a smash with her Greatclub: “Smash! No I’m not. I’ll do nothing.” An 8 misses. She steps back a bit, not incurring an Attack of Opportunity as the minion is almost surrounded.

Matthew hits the DM cheat button, skips Milo, gets shouted at, and goes back to Milo. He flings a javelin at the boiled egg and crits! That was his last javelin, but totally worth it. Boiled Egg takes 8 damage.

Matthew: “What’s seventy six take away eight?”

(It was just jokes, he promises.)

Duncan remembered a rule! Egg boy has to roll for his Concentration spell now! And it fails, yay!

Marcus can’t do much, so he moves up and readies an attack in case something comes close enough to whack.

Pilfer has previous, huck-wise, so he hucks the smol hammer again. But misses, with a 6. It clatters into the room but does not strike majigger.

Sophie, OOC: “I’m not doing much good. Thanks!”

Leslie asks if Pilfer is well; he’s not at full health, so Leslie fixes that even with a nat 1 which translates into 5HP back.

Bingo has a go at slapping this guy around a bit, and successfully slaps the guy around a bit with a 17. There’s a lot of sauce on it now.

Cora sees the one guy with the sauce on, and the bald guy, increasingly angry, with a javelin sticking out his leg. She runs up to Egg and hits him - he’s got a cartoon lump coming out his head now.

Ren’s turn, he wields his pointy food-poker, but 11 misses. He has inspiration…? Fuck it, he’ll do it again. 14 hits! 4 damage, and that will do it. Ren: “Yum, yum, yum.”

Egg boy takes a turn. He’s cross with the short-lived Spiritual Weapon situation, he casts it again, placing it near Milo.

Joe, OOC: “But I’m stood over here!” 22 definitely hits, in spite of his insistence otherwise. The Frenchman tells him he should avoid that kind of attack in future, if possible. He takes 5 Force damage. Cora must make another DEX save - she makes this one, so the Sacred Flame misses.

Hilda’s turn. Where is her hand axe, she wants to know? It flew into the room, and is near Cora, she is told. She runs in to pick it up, and flings it at the Egg. Dirty 20!

Matthew: “Nuts. That’ll do it.”

Sophie: “Right in his big bald head?”

Matthew: “... Maybe in his shoulder.” Egg pulls the axe out, and sauce is coming out of his shoulder a bit, and throws the axe to one side.

Milo’s turn, and he gets scrappy like a terrier. He rushes toward the bald man, incurring an attack of opportunity from the Spiritual Weapon. 13 hits him for 9 damage and he’s down.

Marcus runs over and rummages in Milo’s bag for a potion. It will take another turn to give it to him, however.

Pilfer has hucked everything he can huck, so he moves up using his dash ready to attack Eggman next turn.

Leslie gives Milo a shot of adrenaline to the heart, rolling max healing. “I thought we ‘ad lost you for a moment zere mah friend!” says the Frenchman to Milo.

Cora’s turn - she smashes Dr. Robotnik in the head to get to the good bit. 19 hits! He does get his noggin out the way, but the attack hits him in the chest where the fun thumpy organ lives.

Ren is up - he doesn’t have inspiration any more so he’ll have to roll good. He doesn’t, but then he remembers he’s flanking, and rolls again - but still misses.

Matthew rolls a CON save for Eggman after Cora’s attack - but maintains Concentration.

Then: “... Bye bye, Bingo.”

Ren: “BINGO NOO!”

“What’s the - actually, never mind.” Eggman casts Inflict Wounds on Bingo, hitting and doing 16 necrotic damage. Bingo is down!

“Milo, I’m gonna hit you again. Because you’re there.” He only takes two damage this time, though.

Hilda! Save the day! She’s too far away to reach him this turn - but she can move diagonally! Yeah! She scampers over and gives him a bonking on the head with her Greatclub. 21 definitely hits him, for 7 bonking damage. He has underestimated this situation, he’s beginning to realise. These zombi- er, Friends, have a level of coherence and coordination that he was not expecting. We all interpret his expression to be, ‘carry on’, so we do.

Milo can move now that Marcus is in melee with the Spiritual Weapon. He grins at Marcus and rushes off to join the classic Romero moment happening on the other side of the room. (The horde is really where it’s at.)

Marcus dashes as well, taking 2 damage from an opportunity attack, and can just get up to Eggman on his turn.

Pilfer moves up to surround Dr. Robotnik. He gives him a good old fashioned zombie slam, at Advantage because he’s flanking with Cora, but somehow still misses.

Leslie looks over at the group, then at the Spiritual Weapon. He tries to grab it by the handle. His reasoning is sound; if it can hit you, you can grab it. Sadly this doesn’t pan out. (When assaulted by a dangle-bag, Joe advises, never grab it by the handle. It causes more problems than it solves.)

Cora wants to take Eggy to the deck to commence chewing, so she Slam attacks him - 21 hits! 5 bludgeoning damage. He’s still standing, however, though he looks kind of delighted (to us) that he’s about to become food.

Ren pokes him with his spear. Not at Advantage because he’s flanking with Bingo who is dead. Dying. 21 still hits, for 5 damage. The spear goes through the armour and out the other side. He’s dead! How de do dis!

158XP awarded, which is well over the threshold for level 2. (Matthew will sort that for us.) Marcus asks Milo before stuffing the last potion down Bingo’s neck. Bingo looks up at us, dazed, and says “Did we eat?”

Ren claps him on the shoulder and looks into his rheumy, rotting eyes and says, “We ate, Bingo. We ate.”

It’s late, so the next session will begin with an explanation of what we just went through, when we interrogate Bloody Delicious Johnson.

#dnd #tradeway2 #campaign diary

[thetradeway]

Session two of our side-campaign, in which we are all, inexplicably, zombies. Brains are eaten, someone sings 'Don't Stop Me Now', and some food takes several javelins and at least one greatclub to the knees.

Session 2 17 Jul 2021

Ed and Matthew are being haylords (literally - they are baling hay), so we start a little late. Also Sophie is away, so someone else will be taking Hilda for her.

Mina has been building Gundams…

We make Nature checks to see if anyone of us remember what we are. Hilda does not make a check as she is still at 0HP. Ren, Marcus and Milo remember that ‘zombies’ are made with weird food; but we can’t be zombies because we know our names. We’re amnesiacs; we’re like characters from Neighbours. Not zombies. Pshhh.

Matthew has bestowed upon us some XP for the last fight, plus some extra for entertaining him so beautifully.

Cora thinks we should try to find a way to preserve our food a bit longer. From the feet up from now on?

We make Investigation checks. Milo notices that although the surrounding area contains weapons and spoiled food (mostly what we made), etc., there isn’t much in the way of bodies. He wants to know what size the food is; he thinks they must be from the same litter. They’re all about the same size; medium. (It goes: small, regular, large, goliath, god.) He looks at his friends; we look wounded, but there are no organs or anything hanging out. Some bandages wouldn’t hurt.

After the fight, we discovered our food was carrying some money. Between us, we scrabbled together 13 gp. We remember that money is useful, so we keep it. (Ren decides to invest his in cryptocurrency.) Hilda is the strongest, so we pile to money on her still unconscious form. We also find 7 gems, and 5 bottles, and a sphere.

Bingo asks if we mind him hanging around; he gets very excited when we tell him he’s welcome to chill with us. He’s excited to get to the horde as well. “Everyone’s friends there, it’s brilliant!” Cora decides it’s a bit like Burning Man. Leslie looks us all over; he does that old people thing when they nod along with the young folk. Let young folk be young folk.

Ed joins us, yay!

It turns out that Leslie has never been to Burning Man. Or the horde. I think? He doesn’t like being around big crowds; he prefers to spend time alone. Somewhere a bit greener. Does he mean over there? (Pointing). No, it turns out he arrived by boat. Hmm. Pilfer gets a sense of salt on the air, and the movement of a ship - for a fraction of a second, and then disappeared. He burps something disgusting; this is not strange to any of us.

Leslie comes from a place what is different to the place what we are standin’ on. ‘E’d love to go ‘ome. (For the sake of argument, and the fact that he can’t keep the accent straight from one week to the next, it’s decided that Leslie doesn’t keep his own accent but takes the one from whatever body he’s inhabiting. He’s gone from West Country to Brizzle. Or it might be the Chezzy Massive.)

This sphere that we found has a smooth surface, and weighs about a pound. Ren rolls a 17 Investigation. (Matthew asks me to roll a d4; “No reason.” Uh oh. I roll a 4. That’s either really good or really bad.) The sphere is made of glass.

Pilfer: “It’s a snow globe!”

DM: “… It’s opaque.”

Pilfer: “It’s not a snow globe!”

Ren blurts out, ‘Driftglobe!” It will light up as if the Daylight spell is cast. He can speak the command word in Friends and it will light up. It works once per day and recharges at dawn. It can also float.

Milo hears some food shout, a sort of sad, whiny sound, but then it’s gone.

What’s in the bottles? They’re glass, reasonably ornate, long necked, with a rich red fluid in them. Not sauce. Ren opens one and gives it a sniff. It smells like the best food in the world. Leslie advises against drinking it, however. Marcus asks him if he knows what it is; it’s a healing potion. Two seem to be in fancier bottles than the rest. We decide to give Hilda one of the fancy ones. (We now have two remaining RHPs.)

We distribute and take various potions, and then set about deciding what to do. Bingo panics when he realises he doesn’t actually know how to find the horde; Cora manages to calm him down, and earns herself Inspiration.

Leslie seems to have more of an idea of what to do and where he’s going, so we decide to go with him and work in a visit to the horde as and when we can. Bingo thinks we might be starting our own horde. Trendsetters!

Matthew does a sound effect and drowns himself out. “Who’s playing Metallica?” “You are!”

We carry on: The battlefield scenery continues for the better portion of the day. Does it bother us that we’re walking on a carpet of the dead? Well - that’s the thing. There’s not many bodies. Sometimes flying food comes and pecks at it, but when we grab at it, it nips out the way real quick. (We know what birds are, but we are aware that these aren’t birds. These are flying food. There’s a difference.) There are weapons on the ground, but not whole corpses. There are bits, sure, and we can hear friends shouting in the distance.

“I’m Bingo!”

“Can I be Bingo too?”

“Sure!”

(Interesting note - they are all Bingo, but they are all aware which Bingo is which.)

The sky begins to clear. The carnage appears to be thinning. There are fewer weapons, less spoiled food. We snack on what bits of food are still dragging themselves along the ground. Ren: “Mmm, trail mix.”

Cora asks Pilfer if he needs his parasol - he belatedly fumbles around for it. (Also DM has added a sketch book to Ren’s inventory for his lyrics and drawings. He knows it’s his, but he doesn’t know why he’s done all those hieroglyph, squiggly weirdness in between the pictures.)

Something hoves into view as the scenery improves:

Bingo: “I know why they do it - it’s for the freshness!”

Pilfer: “Has anyone got a tin opener?”

Ren: “It’s got its own tin opener strapped to the back of it, look.”

We see the canned food shake its head and draw its can opener as it approaches us. And we roll initiative…

The food goes first; it steps forward and prepares itself to be opened. (It holds an action.)

Milo goes next. He moves forward and tries the first of his two can openers, for a dirty 20 with his javelin. Yeah! He pierces the protective container; we will have to eat this meal today, it won’t keep now. The food pulls Milo's opener out of itself, and there is sauce on the end of it. Milo is delighted.

Cora moves forward, and holds an action, as do Hilda and Marcus. (Marcus makes an INT check to see if he’s noticed he has a quarterstaff yet; he has not.) Ren shambles forward as well, and does the same, holding up his second spear. "Kebab."

Pilfer hucks some cutlery at the food, once he’s within range. 19 to hit with his dagger-spoon. Spork? Ed: “I reckon you could do some serious damage with a spork.”

Leslie shambles up and holds back for now, but Bingo can’t contain himself. He uses all of his movement to get right up to the food, and its tin opener. This is not going to go well for Bingo, as he’s now the only one in range of the food. The food now attacks Bingo.

Ren: “Poor Bingo.”

Cora: “Bingo is about to get a lot shorter.”

Matthew finds the right button and hits Bingo with a 21 and a 22, for 11 slashing damage.

Pilfer: “… Bye, Bingo.”

Luckily the food misses its second attack, and Bingo is still up. He’s only cleaved a bit in twain; he’ll probably walk it off.

Cora has a go at tenderising the suit. She swings her mace, but misses. Milo moves up and uses another can opener - but 15 misses. “This food is tricksy.”

Hilda flings her hand axe but it bounces off the can. Marcus runs up and does a Slam but misses. Ren walks up to the food for an attack as well; he pokes it with his spear, two handed. 15 misses.

You know, food can sometimes be quite dangerous. We should have a rule where we can horde up and all attack together (as in, we can flank for advantage.)

Pilfer, having run out of cutlery, hucks a ‘smol hammer’ at the food as an improvised weapon. 21 hits! Right in the noggin! 1 point of damage, awww.

Leslie stays on the outskirts a bit, but he’s making his way round. Bingo’ll have a go. “He’s so excited!” 9 misses, though. He paws ineffectually at the can, frustrated. The food has a go back, but misses Bingo. The second one hits for 7 damage.

Matthew, clicking buttons: “ Poor… old… Bingo.”

We hear Bingo say, “Ow!” He looks poorly now.

Cora is up. Open this can! She has a try at grappling the food to the floor; she makes a STR check for 14. She does not grapple the food. Milo moves up to flank it with Marcus, and does a bite by making a Slam attack with his teeth. 4 Bludgeoning damage!

Hilda moves up but can’t get near the food, so she elbows Marcus and Ren in the back of the knees. Marcus attacks, now that he’s flanking with Milo, and manages a Slam for 6 bludgeoning damage. Yeah!

Ren shuffles around so he’s flanking with Cora, and has a stabby at the unprotected side - but sadly, even with advantage, he misses. His spear skitters across the surface of the can. Pilfer wishes to Slam him. “Slam to your heart’s content.” Sadly he’s so excited he slams the floor instead.

This is standard Friend tactics - surround and overwhelm - we don’t need to change a thing. Leslie has a go as well now. He misses.

Stuff is leaking from Bingo, but he’s still up and for the first time in his career with this new horde, he scores a 20 to hit for 2 bludgeoning damage. We all cheer.

Canned food does some sword work at Bingo, hits him, and Bingo goes down.

“NO BINGO NO!!!!!”

Bingo is not dead, because he’s significant enough to have a name, we are assured. Hooray! The food takes aim at Milo, but only rolls a nine. Phew!

It’s Cora’s turn. The canned food smells worried. She has another go at grappling it, but rolls a 7 - she uses her Inspiration and grapples it.

Milo has a dim memory of catching something like this that had pinchers, so he pokes between the plates with his javelin to get at the good stuff - and gets a Critical Poke! DM: “I’m not gonna lie to you guys, you needed that.”

Does Milo get any nice chewy bits out? He’s pushed his javelin right through the knee joint; he’s separated the bones in there, and it’s all just connected by meat now. If the food survives this, it will never be knight again. He now has a long career as a meme to look forward to.

This food is now much closer to being prepared now. Milo even gets Inspiration for such a wonderfully timed Nat 20. Hilda takes aim at his other knee, cackling all the while, and hits with a 24 for 6 bludgeoning.

Marcus aims a Slam at its head with 23 to hit for 7 damage; canned food is struggling but not down. The only thing holding it up is Cora’s grapple and the fact that we’re standing all around it. (Like when you pass out at a gig.)

Ren remembers food on a stick (hazy memories) and has another poke - and misses. He realises he’s been using the wrong end of his spear, so he turns it around for next time. DM, through tears of laughter, awards Inspiration.

Pilfer takes a swing and a miss.

Duncan, OOC: “Don’t stop me now…”

Ren realises he’s humming under his breath.

This food is smelling pretty ready now. Not perfect! But close. Bingo makes an Undeath save. a 19! Canned food struggles against Cora’s grapple, but fails. DM: “It is weary, and ready for eats.” Cora wants to start sucking the juice out of the eye holes. She makes an attack but a 14 misses; she used her Inspiration last round.

Milo takes aim at the armpit. DM: “Horrible little man! I love it!” He rolls two 8s, sadly.

Hilda has been cackling since last round, and takes aim at the same spot as last time. 21 hits, for 4 bludgeoning damage and with that the meal cracks open. Underneath the can is lots and lots of lovely freshly prepared food!

Pilfer retrieves his hammer and knife, and Hilda picks up her axe. Marcus stops shovelling food into his mouth for long enough to give Bingo a potion.

Milo wants to bend some metal into a sort of cup shape, and try saving some of the food for later. He can add “Some food in home made can” to his character sheet. Matthew adds that he must note: “Not airtight.”

We all get some treats! 116XP! As we consume our meal we find 8 more gp, some more gems. Marcus asks to keep the can's can opener, as he doesn’t have a weapon; Leslie nudges him and says he might have something on his back. Marcus turns around.

We also find two more RHPs, some fancy boots. We don’t know what they are, but Leslie suggests they might be worth taking along. Pilfer claims them, and the food’s hat. The head falls out; Ren starts digging around behind the jaw for the good bits. We also find a fancy stick! Milo knows what it is - and now he has Proficiency in Investigation rolls. He and Ren both know it’s a magic stick. Not just a stick, either - a staff. It’s got a snake’s head on it. He doesn’t know the exact nature of it, due to his own nature. Marcus picks up the tin opener/greatsword.

We have a nice sit down meal. Bingo is so delighted with us and our micro-horde, he’s starting to forget about looking for the main one.

We decide to devote another week to this, as we started late. We finish with a dream for Cora:

She knows she’s asleep. She is in a pretty setting of rolling meadows; she feels at peace. She knows that she knows more now, but can’t grasp what exactly that is. It is the height of summer. A bright red comet races across the sky, and it starts to rain. The sky grows dark, and she feels a sense of melancholy. The rain grows heavier. At a table in the middle of the meadow is an old man, gorging himself on food from silver plates. His eyes turn black, and he smiles. (A midget talks backwards and is gone.) The old man becomes a figure holding a sword and speaking gibberish. A mountain crumbles to dust. The figure advances. It grasps Cora by the throat -

And she wakes up.

#tradeway2 #campaign diary #dnd