We rejoin our intrepid explorers as they gather themselves from the previous weeks fighting and falling and spiders... Why are there always spiders? And not just small ones, the type that would hit you with a newspaper. The party sets out in a direction to an oddly named place to try and return their mushroom friend to his home...
That was a close one - I guess we're also quite lucky that the ooze was polite enough to try and kill us another time. Jim Jar has a rough idea where we are and gives us some options. There's a dwarf stronghold, a deep gnome settlement and a city of humanoid fish. All are a substantial distance away as we're on foot - no amount of fudging is going to change that. We choose to head south, to the city of Sloopadoop? Sploopdadoop? The place where the first people live is how I will remember it. We choose to divide up the jobs, a lookout, a guide, a mapper and a forager. And Helga's there to fumbling around in the dark - Quornian has been kind enough to carry a flame in an outstretched hand for her to follow. This doesn't stop her occasionally stumbling with Stool on her head.
We begin our travels at some pace, hoping to put some distance between ourselves and the assumed following party of Drow. Despite some apparent poor rolling from the humans up above, my innate senses help us never get lost in a place I have never been - how logical. We do, however, get delayed and lose some time travelling on many the occasion. As the forager, I am only able to scrounge some mushrooms to share between us all.
We come to camp out first night in the Underdark, the cold floor not very forgiving or welcoming. Quornian stretched his arm and massaged his shoulder, tired from holding the flame aloft for Helga. Fortunately, due to have a high ratio of elves in the party, there will always be two people on watch thanks to some really cool rules. First on the watch is myself and Unicorn who I totally called Rainbow for a whole flashback last time. It all seemed normal, a perfectly dark and eerily quiet whatever time of day it currently is - I miss the sun. That's when we heard it, a noise in the distance steadily approaching. It sounded like scuttling, larger than life scuttling, hundreds of tiny feet.
In the distance we saw a soft glowing approach, getting closer. We ready our weapons as we start making out shapes, carapaces and antenna gently bobbing. Beetles - big beetles. Big glowing beetles, the lights coming from their antenna. They quite happily wonder past, not bothered by our existence. What do we do? We look at each other, then at Quornian, then at Helga. We both nod as I raise my hand crossbow at the bugs, waiting for the last to pass. I gently squeeze and trigger until the bolt is let loose - once again wasting a 20 on some harmless creatures. I manage to skewer three of the bugs onto the bolt, into the floor. The other bugs stop and turn quickly, I almost feel like I can see a tear in one of their eyes and the sound of a tiny violin being played... Abruptly broken by theme turning into a writhing mass of vicious clicks slowly advancing towards us. Unicorn leaps forwards unleashing a wave of flames from his fingertips, enveloping the mass filling the area with high pitched screams. Quornian wakes from his trance and slowly turns to look at us in disbelief. I bend down and flick one of the now crisp antennae and point at Helga - 'We can rest your arm!' For a man who loves life and preserves it any way he can... He sure knows his way around the anatomy of a beetle. We're able to harvest the glowing glands into almost a paste which we proceed to cover Helga in. She wakes up glowing, confused to a happy Quornian.
The next couple of days pass quite smoothly, we keep a good pace and I am able to forage an abundance of food for us to eat. We, of course, get sidetracked but never lost - it's part of the travelling experience.
One day, we found ourselves at a fork in the road and we decided to head through the cover into a cave of sorts - nothing to do with dice. The cave is low, just tall enough for us to walk through without ducking down. We didn't forget about Stool at all, and totally weren't just grinding his poor little mushroom head against the ceiling. A gentle mist is rolling along the cavern floor, with pillars running from the floor to the ceiling and ever so slight smell of decay. Ahead we can see a figure, hunched over an animal seemingly enjoying its meal.
Helga darts forwards, weapons drawn and ready for action. Quornian runs up next to her holding his hands out flat to her, trying to calm her. 'We don't need to harm this creature, it is just surviving.' An impressive roll later, following by a couple of verses of "Sun's getting real low" and Helga's shoulders relax, she loosens her grip on the weapons. Quornian really is the stuff of legend, calming a raged barbarian. The creature notices, looking up and barrelling towards them, swinging in and out of the pillars in an almost graceful fashion. Before we know it, the creature - a mix between a millipede and a worm - is upon them reared up and ready to attack.
First, it moves it's tentacles aggressively towards Quornian, but instead just tickles his face to lull him into a false sense of security... And lunges forward sinking its teeth into Quornian's arm releasing a fortunately small dose of venom which he shrugs off only slightly losing sensation in his hand. I raise my crossbow, as does Jim Jar firing bolts into the creature, Rainbow releasing magical missiles driving it back. Helga chases it down shouting 'I told you so' as she wildly swings removing tentacles. Quornian, still refusing stays out of the fight until it moves no more, laying in a heap on the ground at Helga's feet.
'I don't see why we have to kill everything' he says as he is crouched over the creature, tugging on its venomous glands and juicing them into some vials. I'm getting some real mixed messages from this dude. He chucks the vials to Jim Jar who proceeds dunk some bolts in them until it's all used up.
Helga has stopped glowing at this point, however, another 20 later during my foraging, I find some water orb mushrooms to keep us hydrated and more importantly some torchstalk - mushrooms which can be burnt as torches... Or explode like little sticks of dynamite. None the less - the risk is not mine to take - I can see in the dark. Helga seems happy either way.
This leads us nicely onto the last night... And our last encounter. Everything has gone surprisingly swimmingly, the random encounters seem to be few and far between - which is what everyone wants for an adventure - right? On this night, we encounter a dwarf, a very strange dwarf indeed.
I and Quornian were on watch this day when in the distance we saw a dwarf wondering the Underdark on his own in what appeared to be a patchwork cloak. We woke the party and steadily approached not to startle the chap. He was babbling and blubbering all sorts of nonsense making vivid gestures with his little hands. We approach slowly, taking Stool from Helga's head planning to spray some of his telepathic spores so we can communicate with the man. We shake Stool, the spoors gently glide over to the dwarf... That's when stuff got weird, our heads filled with his maniacal words and accusations, ringing around my skull - this may have been a bad idea as I add a count to my 'madness level' my corresponding human up above says. I can't move as I watch the dwarf brandish a large blade - I can almost hear Helga's heart getting excited at the site of a bigger blade to cleave things with. Fortunately, in my immobile state - the remaining party is able to make short work of the dwarf who collpases laughing giddily.
We offer Helga the blade, who gleefully accepts wiping a tear from her eye. Unicorn takes the robe, feeling a magical energy emanating from it. He closes his eye and casts his hands over the cloak as the DM booms 'you've found a robe of useful items.' How useful. The patches covering the cloak can be removed to create items in the physical world including dogs, rowboats, pits, doors, ladders, rope, bullseye lanterns and even a portable ram. I just can't wait to see what we're going to do with it...
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