Session 30 – Ride ‘em, Cowboy!

The party approached the locked doors of the Drow outpost where they had heard the children were being kept. As Vedica started to listen at the door and check it for traps before unlocking it, they were blindsided by three large spiders from a hidden alcove. They managed to dispatch the spiders with only Murchad having suffered a bad wound. After using some healing potions, the party again turned its attention back to the locked doors.

Once they were opened, Vedica scanned for traps in the small room that led to another set of double doors and found none. Unfortunately, she had simply missed them. When Murchad entered the chamber, a poisoned crossbow bolt flew from a hole in the side wall. Pressing further into the room, Dwårfy also set off a bolt trap, but he was able to dodge out of the way. It was then that Murchad saw holes in the walls, indicating more bolt traps. Vegvisir noted that the holes were chest-high, so he suggested that Murchad and Dwårfy crawl across the floor to harmlessly set off the other traps, which they did.

Vedica picked the next lock, revealing a small room before a bend in the hallway. She could hear hissing and movement in the chamber beyond the bend.

It was then that the party remembered that most of them had invisibility rings and decided to start using them again.

Vedica crept around the bend and saw that there was a large room with four pony-sized spiders tethered to the room’s columns and a Drow grooming one of them. Despite her invisibility, one of the spiders was able to perceive that she was there, and began to behave in an agitated manner and face in her direction. This attracted the attention of the groom. Vedica stepped back around the bend.

Dwårfy entered the room while invisible and attacked the Drow. The party decided to blitz-attack everything in the room – the Drow, the spiders, all of it. In the melee, Vegvisir was bit by one of the spiders and was dying of its poison. Tiv gave him a myrtle berry, curing the poison.

Once they cleared the entire room, Vegvisir explored the next room and found it full of saddle and tack for riding the giant spiders. Vedica opened the next door to reveal a long, dark hallway and a lighted room beyond.

Vegvisir was then struck with inspiration. After harvesting some spider venom, he polymorphed into one of the giant spiders and had Dwårfy put the saddle on him. Then, Dwårfy, using his invisibility ring, rode the spider into the large chamber beyond.

When they entered the chamber, they found a very large room with a mosaic tile map of the Shadowfell on the floor. There were four Drow warriors, a Drow wizard, and Scath!  The six of them were looking at the map and strategizing something. They noticed the spider mount entering the room, and Dwårfy quietly jumped out of the saddle and reported back to the party what was ahead. As he was doing that, one of the Drow warriors came to check on the errant mount, and Vegvisir curled up on the floor, pretending to be sick.

The party decided to send the invisible members, including Jack with his amulet, into the room and position themselves for another sneak attack. Tiv and Ceangal held back with their elven cloaks, as their invisibility was not complete, and they didn’t want to accidentally get noticed and ruin the plan. As they positioned themselves, Vegvisir provided a distraction by first pretending to be a sick spider and then climbing up the wall and onto the ceiling. The Drow kept trying to grab the dangling reins, and the other warriors began to chuckle and mock him.  The wizard was annoyed, and Murchad and Dwårfy (at this point standing next to Scath) could sense his anger rising. They looked into his armor and saw a featureless face made of black smoke, sheer darkness, and hate.

Once everyone was in position, they launched the attack. Dwårfy struck Scath, followed by Murchad. Jack fired his arquebus from across the room, and the battle was joined. Tiv and Ceangal entered the room, and Ceangal let loose a fireball. To catch the corner of the room with Scath. He was able to position it such that all of the Drow except for one warrior was caught in the conflagration. Most of them survived, but they were now all badly injured.

The Drow wizard unleashed a lightning bolt at Tiv. Scath cast ice storm at Murchad and Dwårfy. Tiv cast silence at the corner of the room where Scath was, in order to prevent him from using more spells. Then, she ran toward Murchad, who began running toward her (he was in desperate need of healing). As the rest of the party was mopping up the other Drow, Dwårfy hit Scath. As he did, Scath’s chain mail armor just went limp and was left draped over Dwårfy’s hammer and forearm. Where had he gone!?

Through Tiv, the party learned that if a spell is “cast with sass,” the enemy will almost certainly fail his saving through, and that a “mace to the face” tends to deal maximum damage as long as the wielder doesn’t break the rhyme scheme -- opting in the end to swing a “mace to the face please clear the space with a little bit of grace“ and dispatch the final enemy. She decides to maximize rhyming in future combats and maybe dabble in alliteration, too.

After some quick and much-needed healing, the party pressed onward for fear of encountering a returning scouting party if they lingered too long. They did manage to retrieve a note from Scath’s armor. It read, “Malek demands the children by the new moon. The ritual begins at Velkyn’s Spire. Do not fail, or Lolth suffers.”  Vegvisir decided to polymorph into a Drow.

Continuing onward, Vedica opened the next door to reveal a long and poorly lit corridor. As she stepped in to check for traps, a giant spider on the ceiling dropped onto her and attacked. Another spider charged at the party from the dimness down the hallway. Once the party managed to deal with both spiders, the party pressed onward. After a bend at the end of the long corridor, the party encountered four Drow eating in the mess hall. The two warriors and two wizards turned from their meals to attack. One attack included a fireball into the hallway that caught the entire party.

The party managed to deal with the four Drow without too much difficulty beyond that, and when they pressed forward, they found the kitchen, still dirty from having made food. Tiv said she wished that the party could just talk to the Drow instead of fighting them. She was pretty sure they could be convinced that they were all on the same side (defeating Malek – the party to stop the kidnapping of children and the Drow to save Lolth).

Through another door, they found a T in the hallway. To the left was another door, and to the right, a bunkroom with two Drow guards and another doorway beyond.

Vegvisir, still polymorphed as a Drow, just strode into the room and plopped onto one of the nearest bunks, as if he were exhausted. He didn’t speak Elfish, so he couldn’t tell exactly what they were saying, but it seemed to him that one of the guards said something akin to “Who is that guy?” and the other responded with a noncommittal shrug.

Tiv, watching from the doorway was seen by one of the guards despite her Cloak of Elven Hijinks, and he stepped forward to swing his sword at the shimmering, translucent figure. The other guard, puzzled, asked what he was doing. Tiv rolled her eyes and muttered, “I’m so tired of fighting! Why can’t you understand that we’re trying to help you by defeating Lolth’s captor? Can’t we just talk this out? Stop! Just stop!” as she swung her mace into the guard’s face.

The party flooded into the room and defeated both Drow. The one guard, they killed. The other, they hit with a poisoned crossbow bolt that paralyzed him. After some debate about how to secure him, Murchad decided that it was too much risk of him waking up, so he killed him there on the floor.

On his body, they find keys, one of which opened the door in the room. Tiv opened the door to find two Drow guarding the missing children in what had originally been the sleeping quarters for the Drow officers. The Drow responded aggressively, but Tiv immediately began to try to talk them down from their aggression. Combat ensued anyway, and Vegvisir stepped into the room and tried to help Tiv deescalate the situation. He couldn’t speak Elfish, but he tried to just rest his hand on the shoulder of one of the guards and just put his finger to his lips.  Unfortunately, neither his or Tiv’s charisma was sufficient, so combat ensued, but the party prevailed swiftly.

Now, having rescued the children (who all appeared to be healthy and well fed), the party beat feet out of the outpost and is poised to set out across the Shadowfell wilderness to escort them to the Shrine of the Woods, their path back to Hibernia.