What are the odds of rolling two ones in a row? Twice?
Gryff's incredible dice rolling skills come under scrutiny as the heroes prepare to head for Wave Echo Cave - and a date with destiny....and death.Starring:
Gronn, a dwarven druid, played by Brett
Wolf, a young human fighter, played by Lorne
Ellenross, a human rogue, played by Hilton (absent due to being overseas)
Gryff, a halfling fighter, played by Jason
Ashnurak, a human wizard, played by Iain
DM comments: This time around I got Brett (Gronn) to deliver a recap of the last sessions events - and I think I'll do that from now on. It gives me a chance to sort my shit out, and let's me hear the adventure from someone else's perspective. Before we kicked off, we had a quick chat about levelling - as most of the party were not far off. Finally, we continued with an experiment - open combat rolling from the DM. So far the feedback has been positive.
Phandalin, destroyed 800 years before, is now starting to revive and our heroes have come through some stressful and dangerous times there. Is it nearing the end, or is it just the beginning?
Our intrepid explorers, not long back from their adventures in the westlands, are preparing for the trip to Wave Echo Cave and question Gundren who, in reality cannot tell them much. He explains that it was a touch search and that he and his brothers had only recently found it, but not yet been able to explore very much - until they had the equipment that the group had originally escorted in blog entry LMoP-1. The wagon stood ready once more, and the party headed out, on a cool, bright summer's morning.
After approximately ten miles travel, and very little conversation, apart from a brief chat about what to expect, they reached a stage where the wagon could go no more and Gundren handed out backpacks full of kit to the others. There was some grumbling.
Another hour of walking and the sun beat down from up on high, but there was regular shelter in the narrow crevasses and canyons through which they travelled - and each time they thought they were lost, Gundren would look around at landmarks only he could identify and then purposefully march off in one direction (also Brett's favourite band).
Gundren exclaimed in delight as they approached a particularly wild looking set of bushes, and behind them the party found a thin tunnel leading into the darkness. A light spell on Wolf's sword lead them through the crack for several hundred feet until it opened into a large cavern. Instantly, their worst fears were partially proved true - Tharden's body lay among piles of supplies (who would be the cousin of an adventurer in this party?!). Gundren roared in anguish and Gronn glowered in anger. Someone would pay - but not at Gundren's hand - he declared he would stay right there and leave the spelunking to the spelunkers. Still no sign of the other cousin, Nundro (but let's face it, he's probably dead if you apply the "Rule of Cousins" from this adventure).
The party climbed down a rope and headed off into the cave. Before long, they found the site of an ancient battle between dwarf and orc - skeletons and rusted armour lay scattered about the place. As Ash nipped forward to check for booty, the party was suprised (stealth roll 17!) by a horde of stirges! After an initial attack round that saw everyone but Wolf injured, a few stirges were stabbed before Ash, in desperation, Thunderwave'd the crap out of every stirge in the room, whilst miraculously (not to him) avoiding all of his colleagues. He celebrated loudly, much to the disgust of Gryff - who's a bit grumpy these days.
The next room, obviously some kind of storeroom held a different kind of surprise. Skeletons! This fight helped hone some tactics for the group (form a semi-circle around the doorway, where Ash
The party doubled-back and headed down another corridor, rough-hewn this time, and found themselves in a massive cavern, lit by carpets of fungus. The room itself was full of all sorts of massive mushrooms, small puff spheres sitting on shelves of other fungi and basically made the entire room a little weird looking. The party turned to the Druid, Gronn, for advice.
"Erm, I'm a forest dwarf, not a cave dwarf!".
"It's just fungus, hold your breath and walk through" said Ash, confidently. While the others tended to agree with Ash, Wolf stopped to consider some kind of protective scarf for his face - but wasn't quite sure what to use.
"...but what about the poof fungus?" asked Gryff....to many guffaws and fnarrs.
Gronn, sick of waiting, rolled a large rock into the carpet of fungus and seemed unbothered by the small cloud of spores which rose in response. The party did, however, all take Wolf's advice and cover their faces before plunging into the room.....and the fungus let out a huge cloud of spores, filling the entire cavern.
"Run!" shouted Ash, "Get the fuck out - back the way we came!"
(since they had face coverings, I gave them all advantage against the poison saves and all made it - one of them "on the button" - damnit!)
The party decided to skip the poof room and go elsewhere (amidst more grumbling).
The party headed north in the cave, before finding a doorway which lead into what was obviously an old barracks. Crouching on the loor, gnawing on a number of centuries old corpses, hoping for the faintest hint of bone marrow, were three ghouls, who leapt at the party and viciously raked their claws across them, slashing faces and chests seemingly at will, but without further ill effect, apart from Wolf, who found himself unable to move. Just as the ghoul leaned forward to sink its teeth into his throat, amazed at its good luck and unable to resist the fleshy feast in front of it, Gryff leapt forward with a series of dazzling thrusts of his blades, driving the creature back, before Ash killed it with a fire bolt.
After negotiating a series of maze-like tunnels, the party found themselves in a room dominated by a large pool. "It's just a pool", announced Ash, and they moved swiftly onwards.
They entered the next room and were surprised to find a number of bugbears, ready for combat, but all facing the wrong direction - across from them was a doorway, blocked with furniture and blocks of rubble. What could possibly have bugbears so afraid? Unwilling to answer that question (or perhaps believing the answer to be, "us"), a short violent melee ended with the heroes taking a moment to discuss their next move over a number of dead bugbears (the highlight of this battle was Gryff rolling a 1, triumphantly reminding me of his Luck racial ability, and then rolling a 1 again!). Ash was all for unblocking the door and seeing what was beyond, but the others disagreed and the decision was to let sleeping doors lie and move onwards in a different direction.
The party moved on and, within a few turns, found themselves before a set of double-doors. Knowing that such a portal in such a place probably meant something nasty, the party burst the doors open and leapt inside!
Across from them, standing next to a table, stood a dark elf in black leather clothes and holding a staff with a spider on top. On either side stood another bugbear.
"I wonder if he knows where The Black Spider is", said Wolf.
Everyone leapt into action. The bugbears charged the group, Gronn and Ash prepared mighty magics while Gryff and Wolf slammed into the bugbears at knee and chest height respectively. Nezznar, the Black Spider, slammed his staff into the ground and as our brave heroes took a moment to await some kind of horrible doom, they saw nothing....but heard something horribly familiar - the skittering approach of giant spiders which ran down the walls, and flung themselves at the valiant adventurers! Ash lit up Nezznar with a witchbolt which didn't seem to want to stop zapping it's target, so the black elf did the only thing he could - he caast a compulsion on Ash, which seemed ever so reasonable, to "go and see what was happening in the corridor"....and Ash duly obliged, ending the spell before it could finish off the brave dark elf.
At that point, four things happened - Nezznar starting flinging magic missiles into warriors, Gronn engaged some giant spiders, the bug bears died and Ash found himself in the corridor which did in fact have something happening - the sound of heavy footsteps and angry voices heading their way!
Ash ran back into the room, just as Gryff and Wolf turned on the spiders blocking their path to Nezznar. Gronn had turned himself into a bear by this point and was laying into a spider. Ash took his last moment of actin to fling some firey doom over at their valiant foe and to everyone's surprise (the witchbolt had done far more than expected!), he dropped to the floor and the spiders vanished in a poof of....err, nothing.
Into the room burst a large black humanoid, nearly naked but well muscled, accompanied by a pair of bugbears. Gronn and Wolf took on the bugbears, while Gryff squared off with the doppelganger. Ash sent waves of fire and doom across their foes, his magics amazingly sliding around his comrades and causing them no harm.
(It's at this time that Gryff obtained his new nickname, Gryffendor "Snake Eyes" Pinecone as he once again replaced a throw of 1 with another 1)
After a series of desperate and impressive parries, Gryff fell to the floor, defeated by the beast in front of him. The others, in desperation, unleashed all they had in one last ditch attempt to fell the doppelganger, his bodyguards already dead, his heavy fists slamming into the heroes time after time before finally, with his final gasp, he whispered a curse into the air, "Vhalak, my brother, avenge me!" before he faded into the blackness...
The party quickly searched the corpses, before taking a moment to relax and rest before searching the rest of the cave.
The Black Spider was dead - but is this the end?
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