Today, we have a real treat for you. And, if you thought that the third session was insane, then you'll be blown away by the things that happened during the fourth one!
This session included returning cast members Hazmi, Trinity, Saito, Sabah, and Eos, and introduced the tiefling paladin Ulic and the human fae warlock Cara.
Prepare yourselves for a long one.
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When last we left off, the party was at the bottom of the great chasm in the cave, having just been "volun-told" to take care of the warforged problem for the goblins.
It was then that the party realized that they were in the presence of a goblin: Haa the Tall.
A long discussion of what to do with him ensued. Some party members wanted to slay and/or torch him, while the majority thought that restraining him and leaving him at the bottom of the chasm for their return would work better.
Then Haa spoke, and everyone discovered that Eos is a changeling.
With this new fact brought to light, the party started to discuss their options: leave the tunnels and have the goblins fight their own war, or carry through with their plans to destroy the warforged. The debate went on for some time, and someone (I can't remember who currently, but quite probably Saito) used the line "That's fine - we'll be dead!" when the thought of what might happen to Rosewood if they failed was brought up. Finally, the consensus reached was to delve deeper and crush the metal menace once and for all.
Sabah decided to do some scouting while the party figured out what tunnel they wanted to travel down. She discovered several branches ahead, as the natural caverns at this point were labyrinthine. When she joined back to the group, they decided to venture forth on a nearly-straight course.
At the juncture that Sabah had left off her reconnaissance, they had to once again decide which path to take. Saito tried listening down the tunnels to help aid the decision making process, but all he could hear was Hazmi breathing heavily in his ear. (More on this later.)
And, as Javier had done the day before, Sabah thought that decision making by using spells would be a good choice.
She lobbed a fireball from her produce flame spell down a tunnel, and...
Struck a freaking carrion crawler.
Combat ensued. Obviously.
Meanwhile, Cara and Ulic had just fallen down a steep hole that dropped them in a tunnel adjacent to the party. More on that later.
The crawler climbed up a nearby wall and was making attempts to attack the party from that vantage.
Thankfully, Eos had become hidden earlier. He fired an arrow using his sneak attack and scored a very solid hit.
Then, Trinity mulled over a choice to throw her hammers or to try to leap to the thing. Finally, she settled on a called shot (house rule: disadvantage on the attack roll, but can roll damage twice and use better result) against the things legs, hoping to knock it down. Remarkably, she hit with both hammers and knocked the bug from the ceiling.
Hearing the sounds of combat, Ulic and Cara approached, weapons drawn.
Saito saw his opportunity and charged in, swinging both of his swords. The crawler was able to strike with its tentacles, but Saito's elemental metabolism protected him from the poison. Thus engaged, he slashed and hacked at the beast's hide.
Hazmi's turn came and he used his highly reliable ray of frost cantrip. But missed!
Sabah was next, and still had flames from her cantrip to lob. She threw one and dealt nearly minimal damage. Such is the fickle roll of the dice.
The carrion crawler was next to act, and continued its assault against Saito. However, with his keen reflexes, he was able to dodge the tentacles and avoid the thing's maw.
Unfortunately, combat became slightly distracted at this point, as Trinity really really reallllllly wanted to try something, but there was no way that Eos couldn't kill the crawler during his turn.
Eventually, Eos decided to use the Hide action and try for another sneak attack if the need arose.
Trinity then charged the thing and was bit. However, she succeeded at the (athletics) check to grapple the beast and leapt on to its back, resulting in an impromptu rodeo.
It was this moment when Cara and Ulic arrived, weapons at the ready. They saw the group surrounding the carrion crawler, the warforged riding it. Great first impression material.
Saito finished the thing with a piercing stab through its brain, ending Trinity's joy ride.
The party and the strange newcomers had a quick chat as to why each was down in the tunnel: the party was seeking to end the warforged threat, and the others had been sent on an archaeological expedition.
It was then that Trinity had her most shining moment yet: she remembered the piece of warforged "skull" that they had gathered, and asked the researcher what she could make of it.
Looking it over, Cara recognized the original holy symbol as having belonged to the death cults of Nerull, a god long-dead from the Reckoning Wars. Specifically, she said that the symbol was "old as balls." Which was met with many a guffaw.
I believe there was a statement of the warforged posing a true threat, to which (I believe it was) Trinity responded "They won't for long." So blood (oil?) thirsty that one (I really need to take better notes for my quotes).
The now fully-assembled party took a short rest to exchange notes and patch their wounds.
Eos has remained hidden this entire time and has change his appearance, as a bit of trivia.
When the party started to leave and Trinity called to Eos that they were doing so, Ulic began to wonder about her sanity. A brief explanation that Eos was in fact not imaginary helped put him at ease.
As they traveled back the way that they had come from, they passed a room that had a single stalactite (that wasn't there before, but no one bothers to remember what the DM says).
It was then that the party heard someone fall behind them.
Turning, they found a darkmantle wrapped around Eos' head. It had dropped him to 0 hit points with a critical hit. In short order, they slew the thing, pulled it from his head, and forced a healing potion down his throat. No death saving throws needed.
It also is important to note that Eos had taken on the appearance of a tiefling, thereby giving the phrase "social chameleon" a whole new meaning.
Trinity, gods bless her, decided to turn the darkmantle's corpse into a hand puppet, much to Sabah's chagrin. Thus was born Squidsy.
There was a bit of discussion as to how this would affect her efficacy as a warrior and why she would even bother to do it. Eos put a rather fine point on the matter: "I have a goblin vertebra with me so that I can make a sheath out of the bones of my fallen foes. A darkmantle hand puppet is just fine!" This may have been brought on in a spat of vindictiveness, but was pretty justifiable just the same.
Eos then had a bright idea and took Ulic aside, splitting the party temporarily. They went back to the carrion crawler and he harvested some of its tentacle venom to use at a later time. In short order, the group was reunited and on the move once more.
This time, they backtracked a short distance and took another path in a fork that they had previously ignored. Saito tried again to listen for signs of imminent threats, but was thwarted once more by Hazmi's heavy breathing. After a good laugh, they then chose their path.
Their current trail led them to a vast chamber that was quite obviously built rather than naturally formed.
The wall to their left had the ruins of four statues lined along it, the floor had a moldy, threadbare carpet leading to the opposite wall. The whole thing had the feeling of a grand temple.
Trinity, the eternal instigator, decided she wanted to charge the first statue and knock it into the others.
Eos' cry to hold fell on selective robotic ears.
Thankfully, Trinity's Strength check wasn't quite good enough to knock the thing over.
However, she did trigger an ancient spear trap and narrowly missed getting impaled by it.
Now, with more caution, the party proceeded towards the far wall. No traps were found, but the other wall held four different tunnels, each marked with goblin script.
Until this time, the party had had no means to read such things.
Then Cara came along, actually able to read the marks that the goblins had left.
The tunnels were marked (left to right) "floating jellyfish things," "falling rocks," "I don't know," and "scary things."
The party was at a loss as to how to proceed exactly. They didn't think that the first two tunnels would be worth a look, and that the "scary things" were probably what they were after.
One last time, Saito decided to listen to the tunnels. This time, however, he made sure to have Hazmi standing a good ten feet away. And actually heard some motion down one of the tunnels! (This may turn into some sort of running gag, by the way. I apologize in advance.)
Eos decided to scout ahead to the "I don't know" room and see what had confused the goblins.
Inside, he found a fountain that hadn't been running in untold years and mounds of dead humanoids. The bodies were aged beyond recognition in many instances, but were much more recent than the structure they were stored in. Quietly, he returned to the party.
Then he said the greatest thing he could have said: "It's a warforged fun room."
That was all Trinity needed. She charged in and threw a stone at the bodies to make sure they were dead.
Then almost every single corpse hand detached from its body and began to chase her.
The party saw her swiftly approaching, then Eos and Saito hatched a brilliant plan: they would lure the hands down the "scary things" tunnel and then use Saito's pass without trace ability, turn off the magical lights they carried to vanish, and hurl a lit torch into the room, thereby siccing the hands on whatever else was down the hall.
And the plan worked! (The +10 to [stealth] checks made it so that the only way to fail against the claws' passive perception was to roll a 1. No one did.)
The other room was filled with shriekers, violet fungus, and a single gas spore (which, sadly, Cara identified).
But none of that mattered.
"The Great Hand War" had begun.
The claws and fungi clashed, slaying each other in a glorious display of player ingenuity the likes of which I have never seen.
The gas spore exploded, taking many hands out with it.
Fungi died, hands were destroyed.
Utter madness.
Eventually, the dust settled, but the party remained hidden, knowing that the cries of the shriekers would lure something to the room.
And, sure as the rain falls, something did arrive.
A lone flumph.
The party members signaled to each other to remain quiet, but the flumph was able to pick up on some of their thoughts.
Once it was obvious it posed no threat to the party, Cara, Trinity, and Ulic approached it and inhaled some spores.
The flumph revealed that it was called Juju, and most everyone instantly like him.
After some discussion about the nature of what may lay further down the tunnel, it was decided that Juju would bring the party to what is now notoriously called "Flumphy Town" to allow them to rest.
Trinity, gods bless her, instantly turned from savage killer to docile kitten when she started interacting with Juju. She now has plans to make a snuggle pile of flumphs.
And that is where we ended the session: being taken down to Flumphy Town.
As all DMs know, things get strange when players get involved with your best laid plans.
Two encounters mashed into a single, psychotic, improbable mishap that lead to what is probably going to be one of my favorite gaming stories for years to come.
I once read somewhere that a DM should be a fan of the PCs. And after that display of incredible, insane, dumb luck, I can't help but cheer these affable murderhobos on.
Until next time, may the dice fall in your favor :)
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