Praerus D&D 5e Campaign Notes, Session 6: Anal Beads of the Underdark

First, I'd like to apologize to anyone that this slightly-immature post title offends. My players wanted it this way, and it is strangely story related.
Secondly, I'd like to apologize to anyone that had to Google what anal beads are.

Now, to get on with the show!
Our players this week were Saito, Sabah, Trinity, and a-slew-of-NPCs-because-no-one-else-was-able-to-make-it.

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To begin, the party had just defeated the warforged and were taking a rest.
At the same time, Saito had recovered from being ill and asked the flumphs for directions to his allies. They were more than happy to oblige.

Saito arrived in the room that the spectator was guarding and did his damnedest to convince it to allow him to pass, but it wasn't having any.
Then Trinity showed up and tried to help, leading to both of them being locked out.
Thankfully, the rest of the party had finished patching their wounds and decided to exit the forge chamber.

Reunited at this point, the party decided to try to get more answers from the beholder about who arrived, when they left, and if they took anything. From this, the learned that:

• the intruder was a friend, yet not a friend, to Vecna
• they killed the second spectator that was down there (hence the gas spore)
• they had arrived about two zemf (14 days or so) ago
• they left with some warforged, one of which was exceptionally large

After that hullabaloo, the party decided to head back into the tunnels.

But not before Trinity gave the parting shot "Screw Vecna!" and flipped the beholder off.

It became irritated, but neither of its eye-beams affected her before they rounded the corner.

Lucky for her, the spectator had to guard that chamber.

Once again in the branching tunnels of this world's equivalent of the Underdark, the party decided to try the tunnel directly across from themselves.

Down that path, they discovered a chamber with a single stalactite.

Not wanting a repeat incident with darkmantles, Trinity threw an arm from one of the warforged at the thing.

And it broke.

Because sometimes a stalactite is just a stalactite.

It was at this point that Saito's ears started to bleed.

Hazmi, resident necromancer and medicine student, gave him a one over and recognized this as signs of an oncoming madness that tended to befall those that stayed underground too long.

Saito was slightly worried, but bandaged his ears and soldiered on.

With a little bit of snooping, the party found that there was a narrow tunnel in the back of this chamber. Everyone could fit, but they would have to crawl through.

Ever the brave one, Trinity decided to head in first.

Sabah was close behind.
Saito saw Hazmi's nose turn into a carrot.

Once Trinity finished the crawl, everything went black.

Because sometimes darkmantles ambush their prey.

To make matters worse, the thing used its darkness aura, leaving Sabah in the dark too.

Thankfully, they were able to alert Saito that something was wrong.

Thinking quickly, he secured a rope to himself and crawled the tunnel, his plan to drag the other two back with him.

Trinity successfully removed the darkmantle from her head, but was still in pitch blackness.
However, she lost dear Squidsy in the exchange. Truly tragic.

This is when the anal bead reference becomes relevant.

Sabah grabbed Trinity and Saito grabbed Sabah.

He then gave the signal to pull.

Sabah didn't duck in time and knocked herself silly, but Trinity was able to contort herself quickly for removal.

The whole effect... well... yeah.

Anyway, thus extricated, the party healed Sabah and began lobbing spells down the tunnel.

Eventually, the darkness aura stopped.

The thing was dead!

But no one, not even the vindictive Trinity, wanted to return down the tunnel.

Thus, they tried another branch from earlier.
It was around this time that Sabah noticed that everyone's faces appeared to be covered in bark, thanks to her traumatic head injury and the curse of the tunnels.
Saito also noticed that everyone's faces had become similar to those of anthropomorphic snow people. Carrot noses, coal eyes - the works.

This branch led them to an ancient chamber that appeared to be a place where the dead were prepared for burial. Several slabs still had bodies on them.

"Fool me once" thought Sabah, who used turn undead.

The three skeletons in the room failed their saves and went screaming from the room.

Now properly secured, the party searched the room.

Not much was found here, though they did discover two paths leading down, further into the darkness.

Also, Trinity replaced Squidsy with Baelzabone, a tiefling skull from one of the slabs.
And the madness of the underworld made it speak to her.

A collective "yeah, no" later and they were back in town.

We then engaged in down time activities for one week worth of time.

The goblins came to make peace with the village during that time, which was well received by all.

Sabah researched more about Vecna.

Saito researched more about the making of the warforged in the temple.

Trinity made some perfume and came out slightly ahead in selling them.
And then the caravan palace arrived...

And that concludes the first adventure for this campaign.

Pretty amusing overall.

At this point, I've given the players the option to start new characters if they so desire, or they can continue on with the same folk for the next part. So far, only Saito seems like he'll be out of the running, but we shall see.

Either way, we are advancing past 3rd level and we will pick back up at 4th level.

It is still in the air as to whether or not we will have our weekly meet-up on Sunday. It seems rather shaky, however, given that Saturday is the 4th.

On that note, I hope everyone has a happy and safe Independence Day!

Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :D