(HotDQ-12) Surprise!

"Can we have a long rest please?"

The mighty adventurers are in for a fright as they battle through Castle Naerymar to find the cult bosses they've promised to kill in return for the lizard chief Snapjaw's help. With lots of stairs, spiders and swearing, our killers will soon find themselves on the receiving end of a few unwelcome surprises! 

Starring, in order they sit around the table:
Nyvan, (played by Jason) a elven knight, who spent most of the week cursing his die rolls and practising his overreaction skills when injured.
Venmir, (played by Brett) an elven clergyman, the cold-hearted priest of war, and man voted "Easiest to lead into an ambush" by everyone else in the group! 
Sigurd, (played by Iain) a travelling swordsman, fibber extraordinaire, who believes the best way to guess a password is to speak every word he knows.
Rodin, (played by Lorne) the sullen dwarven axeman, who doesn't believe in lying, or washing.
Nandrin, (played by Hilton), the no longer so brave elven mage whose catchphrase makes up the heading of today's blog.

and The DM, (played by Alex), who loves to comment in blue. And writes this blog. He's also a bit of a git and likes to make life difficult for his players.

The group starts today after having engaged in combat several times since the last long rest, leaving them a little less sturdy than usual. Truth be told, a break would have been nice, but the clock was ticking and even this lot knew it was time to act, not sleep!

They stood on the causeway looking up at the castle. At their back stood a small army of lizardmen who, while their need for vengeance was still strong, were in no fit state to fit any further - not today. Snapjaw, their leader, reminded the group of their promises to slay the enemy leaders - Mr Gray, Spattergoo and the Black Dragon Woman. Not that the group needed any coercing!

They walked back up the causeway and into the courtyard of the tower, which was strangely quiet. No bodies lay on the floor and no defenders were there to stop them. They walked calmly up to the tower directly in front of them, quickly realising it was the lizardman quarters, built around the castle forge, which warmed the rooms for the cold-blooded inhabitants. Nandrin noticed the doors were strangely quiet, where the rest of the tower had squeaky sticking doors, but the reason wasn't clear. 

They continued up the tower, until they reached the top floor. The room was dark, just a few bits of light coming through large windows in the walls. A strange crunchy layer covered the floor and closer inspection showed it to be bones, from rats to bullywugs, their dried out bones littered the floor. Undeterred, Sigurd marched into the room, only to find himself suddenly beset by three mahoosive spiders which were hiding in the eaves. After some cursing and splatting, the spiders were dead and the party were about to continue on their way, when they heard a strange clicking noise from outside. Learning nothing from Sigurd, Venmir decided to "stick my head out of the window" and was promptly leapt on by two more giant spiders which often tapped their exoskeleton clad legs on the wall to catch dull-witted prey (I was accused of smiling wickedly when Venmir announced his action). One of them sunk its fangs into his face and his hasty retreat into the room lead to another spider-battle which was swiftly finished.

After some cursing and a few comments along the lines of, "let's stop fucking around and find the bad guys", they reversed their way down the tower, and decided to head for the tower in the middle of the courtyard.

The tower lead them to a waiting room, with two doors and a spiral staircase leading upwards. They checked both rooms, finding them to be comfortable guest rooms. One of them had a locked chest at the base of the bed. Unable to resist the potential for treasure, and much to Nyvan's disgust, Venmir insisted they return and check it out when the rest of the tower. 

Since no-one stepped forward to showcase their stealth skills (Nandrin!), Nyvan stepped forward and bashed his sword against the lock. This instantly set off a trap and green acid covered arrow appeared in the wall in front of the trap, then leapt forward to slam into Nyvan's chest. He reeled backwards, flapping at his chest and cursing loudly as the acid spread across his armour.

"Quick, get your clothes off!" cried Venmir in a panic, his voice rising several octaves in fear. 

"No time for your filthy elven perversion!" countered Sigurd, disgusted at their overt displays of affection.

The acid wore off while Venmir tugged at Nyvan's shirt, trying to lift it over his head.

They moved up a floor before it got any hotter in the room and found themselves in a well-decorated room with a desk, chairs and an arrangement of seating around a fire which kept the room warm. Before anyone could do anything,. Sigurd walked over to the desk and kicked it over, savagely. 

"Is this a kobold's room?" asked Nyvan. Sigurd ignored him.

The next two rooms revealed themselves to be a well-appointed bedroom and dressing room filled with girly clothing and bathing salts, ointments and lubricants. They quickly deduced it was an elf's room - Borngrey! Sadly, he wasn't there.

They travelled up the stairs again and found themselves in a strange room - in the centre was a large telescope-like device. Was this the item that Snapjaw had spoken of which allowed the cultists to view the surrounding area? Nyvan urged everyone to continue their search, but Nandrin stepped forward to investigate.

Silently, four gargoyles detached themselves from their places at the ceiling and dropped down into the room, advancing on Nandrin, who looked at the others like a frightened rabbit, then slumped his shoulders in resignation, waiting for death to come.

Rodin charged at one of the beasts, but they pretty much ignored him and all leapt in to give Nandrin a few love slaps. When he realised he wasn't dead, Nandrin perked up a little and quickly slammed his foes with a Thunderwave, sending two of them flying backwards, but leaving two within elf-slapping range. It quickly became apparent that they were not equipped for a battle with the beasts and they beat a hasty retreat. While they all ran down the stairs, Sigurd took the opportunity to acrobatically slide down the bannister backwards, beating them all to the bottom before dismounting with a somersault, despite being the last one to leave the room. He sauntered casually across the room but was largely ignored (one of those moments the DM hopes for a 1!). They were not followed.

They went to another tower, finding the door smashed in and the floor covered in rubbish. Rather than risk getting poop on their boots, they ignored the tower and went back to the one where their kti had been held during their brief incarceration before.

They walked through a doorway and found themselves in room with a series of puddles on the floor and stairs leading both up and down. As they debated their options, the slap of many webbed feet caught their attention and waves of bullywugs charged down from upstairs and up from downstairs! Battle was joined.

Rodin was on fire, slashing at the frogs around him, while Nyvan crushed them at all (seems like he rolled nothing but crits - and Rodin never missed!). The party found facing dozens of frogmen, and were horrified to see Spattergoo stick his head up from the stairs down, casting some spells and then running away. All in all, the party accounted for nearly two dozen frogmen before the rest of them scarpered in fear, having been abandoned by their chief. 

The party continued their chase, running down the stairs, only to find themselves in a cavern complex. Seemingly like they knew their way around, they headed straight towards Spattergoo (like they had boss-GPS) and, after cautiously negotiating a ladder down a small cliff-face, the party found themselves in a mist-filled room. Across from them stood Borngrey, Spattergoo, a handful of cultists and half a dozen bullywugs.

"We should have had a long rest!" said Nandrin, "I did say, "can we have a long rest?" and now I've got no spells. Next time we should have a long rest."

The rest of the party shrugged in unison.

"You fools! You race-traitors! You naive idiots! You have ruined my plans - but it was all for naught. This damned place means nothing, and I would have left this shithole to the stinking frogs and lizards, but no, you had to stick your noses in where they don't belong! The elven race will still survive long after you are all dead - and Tiamat will return to crush you all herself!" cried the elven cultist.

"Tia-who?" asked Sigurd, infuriating the evil elf.

"You are the fool!" countered Nyvan, "and it is you who will die!"

The cultists ran across the room to engage in battle with the heroes while Spattergoo and Borngrey hung back, flinging spells at the party. Borngrey specifically targetted Nyvan for his smack-talk, sending magic missiles slamming into his body. Nyvan roared in anger and swung his sword over his head, and the heads of everyone around him, constantly hitting nothing. Rodin continued his hot streak, slaying all who stood in front of him. Sigurd cast a spell and the far end of the room went quiet.

As the cultists fought viciously, wounding many of the heroes, Spattergoo charged into combat. and the strange silence followed him. The party's magic-users were nullified.

After a few more rounds, the cultists were dead, Spattergoo was severely wounded and Borngrey pulled out a flaming sword and leapt into combat, again targetting Nyvan, who had spent the last few rounds pretending to be a ceiling fan.

Nandrin, who had swung his sword and come closer to killing to Rodin than to hitting a cultist, edged his way around the cave until he found a spot where the silence no longer affected him. He then let off a few cantrips - finally hitting someone with a poison cloud at the 7th time of trying. His celebrations were muted. Spattergoo, however, didn't give a shit and died shortly afterwards.

Venmir also repositioned himself to try and avoid the silence, moving backwards until he could hear the buzz of combat. Sadly, when he looked up there was a wall between him and the enemy. He took a step forward until he could see Borngrey again, but found himself silenced once more. This Dance of the Dumb continued for several seconds until he finally gave up and fired an arrow at the cultist.

Borngrey struck with precision, leaving Nyvan on the verge of death.

"I'm fucked!" cried the paladin, with fear and anger in his voice. "I haven't even hit him yet for crying out loud!" but speaking of Borngrey like he wasn't there just made the elf madder. As he stood up to bring his sword down on Nyvan's head in a final decapitating blow, Rodin slammed his axe into the elf's ribs, and he collapsed to his knees, before lifting his hand and defiantly displaying his distaste for the dwarf by extending his middle finger. Rodin stepped forward with glee, intending to chop the finger off, when the elf was bathed in a holy light, his wounds healing, much to Rodin's disgust.

"Oh for.....not another troll" cried the angry dwarf.

Luckily for the party and unluckily for Borngrey, his magics were not enough to overcome the party's vicious attacks and he was struck down again, this time to move no longer. Nyvan chopped his head off.

"Just in case." he explained.

The party moved into another room after rifling the bad guys' belongings, and found themselves in a misty room, the tendrils of smoke reaching their waists (chest for Rodin) and only after searching the room did they realise there was a series of strange patterns on the ground. Nandrin's magical teachings lead him to believe it was a teleportation device, probably powered by a key word.

At that, Sigurd leapt into action, repeating just about every name and word he had learnt over the last three months, but to no avail. He encouraged the others to join in, but they went silent, leaving the swordsman chanting words at random, stood in the middle of the room, ineffectually. He even tried translating the words on the floor - thinking that might be a good place to hide the secret phrase.

"Well shit!" he moaned as he looked around the room at a bit of a loss.

(and then we stopped for the night)