November 20th, 2019, January 20th & 27th, 2020
Players:
- Maardaar the Warlock (Matt)
- Morgana the Druid (Liz)
- Ender the Rogue (Steven)
- Kif the Ranger (Irving)
- Sore Gash the Barbarian (Eric)
THE MINE (XII)
The party wonders why this fake doppleganger has led them to this place, as they enter the great main stone entrance of the lost mine. The sides of the doorway are flanked by giant dwarven statues holding shovels and picks.
The entry hallway has two doors on each side. The stone walls and doors are dwarf sized, not even 6′ high. They enter the left door and find a room full of skeletons as if they died in a great battle here. This once was an armory, and as they pick through the weapons the skeletons begin to animate and attack. They shatter them easily, and Kif takes a shield.
Across the hall they find a low counter with scales on it, and behind it many cubbies full of paper ledgers that turn to dust in their fingers. Behind the counter, they find a locked safe but despite Ender’s best efforts with his thieves tools, among some other more heavy handed tactics, it does not unlock.
They continue into a giant hall, darkness fades above them. More skeletons cover the floors here, and they are careful to not disturb them. The walls are lined with carvings of dwarves working in the mine and human wizards enchanting their handiwork in a great spell forge. As they light some of the torches on the walls, they notice above them a great mass of stirges that begins to dive bomb them with their bloody, evil mosquitto death needles. They manage to attach to several of the adventurers and suck blood out of them, as the great mass begins to fly in a giant circle pit of hellish blood lust. Kif picks off one or two with his bow, Maardaar shoots of some eldritch blasts, but they are mostly brought screaming to the stone floor by Morgana’s web which entangles their wings.
The room quite again, they move on, this time through the eastern passage. They come to a room full of strange mushrooms and luminescent fungi. Being a little too excited in their examination of them, they unleash a cloud of toxic spores and take poison damage.
Running from this poisonous cloud, they enter into a natural cavern that looks like it has been scorched by magic. The ceiling glistens with crystals and elements trapped in the rock like stars. Two human sized stone buildings stand on the eastern wall, separated by an escarpment with a stairway.
Echoing through the cave, it’s source unclear, is the sound of the ocean and crashing waves.
They enter the first and find a chest. As Ender approaches, a wizard wraith appears. “YOU SHALL DIE UNLESS YOU MAKE AN OFFERING” Mormesk the wraith convinces them to give up a potion, in order to add to the collection it guards. It does this and disappears again.
They enter the other building and find a great forge, still lit with just a tiny green flame within it. A spectator, all giant eyeball, floats in this room. “I MUST WAIT FOR THE OPERATORS, FOR WHOM I SERVE”. Ender pokes it in it’s eyeball and it says “I CANNOT WATCH ANY MORE, I AM DONE” and steps through a wormhole back to it’s own plane.
Outside the building they hear a noise: two bugbears are dragging a barbarian down the stairs of the escarpment past the building they are in.
THE RIDDLE (XIII)
The party from their hiding spot recognizes the barbarian: it’s Sore Gash. As they pass they hear the bugbears talking shit about the ‘drow boss man’. When they get to the opposite end of the cavern, one bugbear sniffs: spores in the air! They drop the barbarian and look around as the party attempts to ambush them but fails. They quickly dispatch them, and Sore Gash is freed.
Continuing further into the mine, they come to another large cavern. This one has a channel running through the center, but the higher ground is again covered in dead skeletons, more casualties of an ancient battle. A huge blast furnace with a giant bellows is here, evidently powered by a wheel that runs through the now dry channel. Morgana wild shapes into a wolf, and using her keen sense of smell she can detect that the lower path has been used a foot path by others. They follow it carefully, careful to not disturb the skeletons.
They make it to the next room, and across the way they see several bugbears digging in a trench, while a drow ranger watches over them! Aha, their enemy here, they plan an ambush and quickly murder the drow and all but one of the bugbears, who begs for his life. Even he is amazed when the lifeless body of the ‘drow’ turns into another doppleganger. A fake boss.
At knife point, they make the bugbear spill the beans. He says the drow wants them to dig but won’t tell them what they’re working for. The regular boss, the bugbear chief, is off his shift sleeping in a nearby barracks. They force him to show them the way.
The bugbear is indeed sleeping, and the party coldly murders him in his bed, and then kills their hostage just to be sure.
The area cleared, they go down a long hallway and enter into a grand room. Two huge dwarven statues stand here, one with a pick and one with a shovel. Behind them are two doors. On the walls, written in Common & Elvish & Dwarven is a statement:
LET ALL FRIENDS PROSPER HERE
LET ALL ENEMIES PERISH HERE
THE RICHES OF OUR PACT BEHIND THESE DOORS
ALL OTHERS WILL FIND CERTAIN DEATH
As the party steps forward the statues speak:
“ASK ONE QUESTION” … “GET ONE ANSWER”
“ONE OF US LIES” … “ONE OF US TELLS THE TRUTH”
The room falls silent again. After much deliberation, Maardaar steps forward: “Which door would the other one tell us to open?” The statue pauses, and says “The left”
The party chooses the right door, and it opens. Wealth and riches – the raw materials of the forge – lie behind it in great undisturbed piles.
As they take this in, they hear a voice: “Thank you my friends, well done.” It is the real Nezznar. “I am Nezznar, ranger of House Baenre, First House of Menzoberranzan! You have served your purpose, now die like the others!”
A great fight ensues. Nezznar casts magical darkness, and many spider minions come out of it. As the party fights off the restraints of the spider webs, Kif wildly shoots into the darkness and finds his mark. With the darkness faltering, the rest of the party rushes in to land their blows. Nezznar is dead.
THE ESCAPE (XIV)
With Nezznar dead and the treasure store room open, the players run into the room and begin filling their pockets and bags with coins. Again, they hear the echo of a wave travel through the mine, although this time it seems closer.
Maardaar examines a glass chest, which he can clearly see inside is a book. He opens it, and finds an operations manual for the mine.
They hear the sound of water louder.
Maardaar casts Detect Magic on a giant dwarf statue at the opposite end of the room. It has two emerald eyes, which Ender jumps up to examine closely. He decides to pull one, and…
The ceiling collapses and the four columns holding this room up fall over, crushing Sore Gash to death. Out of the hole in the ceiling emerges a half spider, half drow monster. Eight demonic spider legs on the bottom, female drow warrior on top. Water pours from the hole as the drider reveals itself, a huge waterfall that is filling the cavern.
A battle ensues with Maardaar falling unconscious. The drider uses it’s magic to pull the drows body to it and suck the husk of it’s corpse dry. It is finally felled after many attacks, with the party badly beaten. The party retreats to the entry room and climbs out of the water on to the two statues. They fight the drider to the death, a bitter battle with many close calls.
With the room filling with water, they swim down the hallway. They climb stairs to higher ground and enter a room that has a sunken ditch. Dark figures thrash in the water, as the water rushes into the room and fills the lower area. The party runs on, into a series of twisty passages – all low ceilinged again, like they are back in the dwarven part of the mine. The passages are a series of dead ends and twists as mine shafts are abandoned and taken up seemingly at random.
But finally they emerge into a familiar area… the room with the dead stirges, splattered with blood. But this time the main passage is blocked as the rush of water has trapped debris and skeleton parts from all areas of the dungeon into the gaping mouth of the main door.
The party takes the westward path, into a small cavern with a cave in at one side. They notice three bed rolls, and dwarf sized tools… it appears to be the abandoned camp of Gundren and his brothers. They see a pasage and beyond it glimpse the night sky: they are free.
They take a short rest and head down the mountain. A giant waterfall now emerges from the once hidden entrance to the mine, cascading down the side of the rocks. In the morning light, they see a rainbow spread out over the valley below as they head toward Phandalin.
Back at the Stonehill Inn, they sit around the fire as Toblin stokes the fire and serves them breakfast as they recount their tales, and explain why there is now a waterfall coming down the mountain.