Gaming

Faran Magebane

Turns out there were at least three puddings and dessert was planning to eat us. And, oh yes, the water levels were visibly rising and someone had peaked inside the watery room and noticed large cracks in the walls from which water was pouring in to the whole complex.

Someone had the clever idea to use the cube to block the puddings and buy us some time. Well two of them. It was apparently up to the dwarf who had already been tasted by the cube and bitten by the first small pudding to feed the third. Between smacking it around with my new mace and more sparklefingers, I held it back for a while. By then the narcoleptic wizard had decided to shatter the ceiling of the water-filled cavern, bringing in even more water. Surprisingly, this actually helped. The water was coming from a source above us, an underground river, with air and a nearby shore.

Faran Magebane

A cave-in blocked off the passageway behind us, and we were forced to look for alternate routes. We found a strange passage into the depths after a brief search, though the passages showed evidence of water leakage. I thought about warning this group of misfits that the caves were likely unstable. But then, it was the only path forward we could find, and we had just had a cave-in. If they didn’t know that much already, they are even bigger idiots than they look.

Buzz Stonebrew

Buzz Stonebrew

It all started over a barrel of dwarven ale. My barrel, that is, which I planned to enter in the guild of brewers’ contest. But the night before the contest, I started drinking early – a bit of a pre-celebration of winning. And then I woke up before dawn, head pounding, to discover that my prize-winning barrel of dwarven ale was one of the barrels we tapped the night before. So I shouldered my pack and set out in search of ingredients for a new cask. Better late than never, right? But this one was going to have to be really, really special. I’d need the most unique of ingredients. Something no one could possibly expect in an ale, and yet, still a perfect complement to the traditional flavors.

Alamar

Hey, Peanuthead!

What’s that?

Hey, pesnuthead! C’mere!

It’s like my daddy’s voice when he dreams of torturing the souls I eat for him. Except…

No, this way!

“Can the rest of you hear that?”

Apparently they can. This is new. Also, my demonic daddy never called me peanuthead.

We decided to investigate. I sent my second son – or was it third? anyways – ahead to scout and he promptly got lost. Eventually we found a strange set of giant doors, so I resummoned the imp while we figured out how to open them. After about half an hour, I decided to try pulling on the handle on one side, and it rotated in a wide circle. We were inside. And the strange voice kept yelling about peanuts and not answering my questions.

Session map

Feverborne

We left the poor dead wererat girl down in the sewers. Bringing her up to the surface and trying to collect a reward for a dead girl whose wounds matched our own silver weapons would be awkward at best, and very very awkwardly fatal for us at worst. Once back on the surface we took stock of the situation. My magic sword didn’t work, Ygnas’ god was slacking off on the job, and our halfling had just walked off, admittedly after doing well for such a stout fellow. We were all hurt, I was feeling feverish, and without healing spells it would take time to heal back to fighting trim. Ygnas was complaining about her mace being broken, too. (How do you break a mace?) We decided to sleep on it and look at options in the morning.

Alamar

Alamar

I didn’t even get the chance to introduce my son around before we were attacked by four more huge spiders. The goblins promptly fled, leaving us to face them alone. Soggy was drugged out of his mind and did nothing useful. Creg was awake but spent more time wrapped up in webs than casting spells. Faolain was barely managing to keep us alive and Prim was the only star of the fight, killing all four of the spiders herself, though I made large contributions by hurting two of them very badly. My son ran around trying to free people from webbing and did nothing useful. Then he got killed. I had to get pregnant in a hurry. It was embarassingly slutty.

Nottanis

Free! I’m finally free of that damned ooze! (Probably).

We continued training through rain and wind at the same slow pace.. the pace of the ooze. After several days of this, during which Sanfire departed, we met up with the somewhat confused bard Brad. Brad was confused about the ooze. The ooze was confused about Brad, but I convinced it not to eat him. Temporarily.

Brad dumped a lot of random gear in the forest for some reason. I picked up a small bell, just in case it came in handy, and we played music as we strolled through the trees. We kept playing until we came across a large owlbear. No, not the one from the cave; this one had cleaner feathers and the loveliest huge eyebrows. Anyway, knowing that discretion and silence are the better part of valor, I stopped playing and hid, as did Stria. Brad… kept playing. The owlbear promptly ate him in one bite. We left. I hoped, very quietly, that the owlbear would step in the ooze. My wish was not granted.

Nottanis

We set off towards Threshold, planning to cut through the forest to make better time. Our plan was foiled by the mold, or pudding, or ooze, or slime, or whatever it was. It simply moves slowly. So slowly that it took days to travel a few miles. And every single day was a nervewracking exercise in wondering if the spell had worn off yet, not to mention watching it all night to make sure it didn’t eat Rowen, Sanfire, or Stria. The magic protects me, not my companions, apparently.

Alamar

Alamar

We fought the “puppies”, which turned out to be gnolls. They mentioned Yeegnohu before they died. I ate one of their souls, but still felt unsatisfied. Empty. I was craving… something. Pickles? Ice cream?

After a short rest we resumed our journey, and eventually reached a large cavern filled with webs. Two goblins met us at the entrance, Spiderbait and Yum-Yum. Whoever named them had a truly morbid sense of humor, but they didn’t seem to care, merrily using some sort of special grease to surf the webbing around the cave. They told us their might be spiders. We all rolled our eyes. Of course there are spiders, look at the webs. But then they offered to guide us past the spiders in return for a red bloodstone we found on the gnolls.

Session map

Nottanis

Feverborne, Sanfire, and Ygnas casme back from the sewers looking discouraged. Ygnas and Feverborne needed a few days to recover, but Sanfire was ready to go, so we gathered a few others and took a side trip to the Caves of Chaos. We traveled to the far western end of the valley, where a natural cave bore claw marks and scratches from a large beast. Sanfire went inside and found an owlbear – and the owlbear found him. He left in a hurry and we set up around the outside of the cave, hoping to ambush it.