Underdark Underdogs
FrdNwsm
Member Posts: 1,069
MC and companions looked around curiously; so this was the Underdark, home of the dreaded Drow! Unfortunately, the rope they climbed down to get here had disappeared, as if by magic. Well, ok, it WAS a magic rope, after all. But it looked like they were here for the duration.
Their first encounter was with a couple of Duergar. Friendly little chaps they were; positively chatty. They were traders, and we bought a few scrolls, sold some excess junk appropriated from the fish folk, and wandered onward. The group approached some sort of magical portal, and a hostile air elemental appeared. Dead dead dead. Hmm, there's another one. Kill it! And ... another one?? Well, this was amusing; an endless stream of victims! No cash or items but MC could feel his head filling up with learning. He lost track of how many of the squishy airheads they killed; half-orcs can't count very high with their gauntlets and shoes on, but Jaheira calculated 9 or 10 of them were slain before the magic summoning them faltered and ran down.
Whee! The group ran wildly around looking for more easy prey, and Lo! A fire gate! With fire elementals! The previous scenario was re-enacted as 9 or 10 fire elementals were extinguished. And yet another gate! Earth elementals! What a glorious slaughter! Sweating profusely, the party searched the area looking for a Watergate, but no luck. They later found out that a mighty mage named Noxin had, for some reason, forbidden anyone to even mention such a thing, and had expunged all memory of it. Its location was now lost to obscurity. Bummer.
A few other encounters followed. Some myconids were fireballed out of existence, although not before Anomen breathed in some fungus fumes. This caused a disease which, oddly enough, did not resolve on it's own. He was still coughing the next day, and actually required a cure disease spell to recover. Ick.
A wandering party of Drow were the next to fall to the inexorable March of Destiny. Pretty puny they seemed, to have such a fearsome reputation. Their weapons were mediocre, but they had really really really nice armor. +5 full plate! And there was +5 chain mail that Imoen could wear and still cast spells! Unfortunately, closer inspection revealed that all this stuff would disintegrate upon exposure to sunlight. Drat! Oh well, we could enjoy the luxury of double digit ACs while it lasted. Anything extra was sold to the helpful Duergar we had met. They mentioned a village of some sort up North, so we decided to explore in that direction.
Their first encounter was with a couple of Duergar. Friendly little chaps they were; positively chatty. They were traders, and we bought a few scrolls, sold some excess junk appropriated from the fish folk, and wandered onward. The group approached some sort of magical portal, and a hostile air elemental appeared. Dead dead dead. Hmm, there's another one. Kill it! And ... another one?? Well, this was amusing; an endless stream of victims! No cash or items but MC could feel his head filling up with learning. He lost track of how many of the squishy airheads they killed; half-orcs can't count very high with their gauntlets and shoes on, but Jaheira calculated 9 or 10 of them were slain before the magic summoning them faltered and ran down.
Whee! The group ran wildly around looking for more easy prey, and Lo! A fire gate! With fire elementals! The previous scenario was re-enacted as 9 or 10 fire elementals were extinguished. And yet another gate! Earth elementals! What a glorious slaughter! Sweating profusely, the party searched the area looking for a Watergate, but no luck. They later found out that a mighty mage named Noxin had, for some reason, forbidden anyone to even mention such a thing, and had expunged all memory of it. Its location was now lost to obscurity. Bummer.
A few other encounters followed. Some myconids were fireballed out of existence, although not before Anomen breathed in some fungus fumes. This caused a disease which, oddly enough, did not resolve on it's own. He was still coughing the next day, and actually required a cure disease spell to recover. Ick.
A wandering party of Drow were the next to fall to the inexorable March of Destiny. Pretty puny they seemed, to have such a fearsome reputation. Their weapons were mediocre, but they had really really really nice armor. +5 full plate! And there was +5 chain mail that Imoen could wear and still cast spells! Unfortunately, closer inspection revealed that all this stuff would disintegrate upon exposure to sunlight. Drat! Oh well, we could enjoy the luxury of double digit ACs while it lasted. Anything extra was sold to the helpful Duergar we had met. They mentioned a village of some sort up North, so we decided to explore in that direction.
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Wandering back down the path in a Southerly direction, the party stumbled onto an odd looking structure, like a giant metal beehive with windows, behind which figures could be seen moving. Playing with some doors caused a figure to appear. A lich, who had been imprisoned for aeons. Was he grateful? Did he say "Gee thanks, let me reward you with great riches"? Be serious dude! The ingrate promptly forted up with a sequencer and then cast ... you guessed it ... Time Stop! MC was really starting to hate that spell. The lich popped off a true sight, and then hit Jaheira with Imprisonment. Poof! Vanished she did. When the march of time resumed, however, we put a hurting on Mr. Undead, who dropped some treasure.
[This is actually pretty nasty; he had a 1 in 6 chance of imprisoning MC himself. Now, I think the last time MC bought it was way back in Chapter Two when he attacked Firkraag at too weak a level. He's gotten overconfident!]
Now, MC recalled that the nice Duergar at the entrance area had been selling scrolls of Freedom. Oh. So THAT's what those are for! MC dashed back to the helpful traders and bought two of the precious items. Then back to release Jaheira. Whew. Oooo-Kaaay; you can't fool even a half-orc the same way twice. We buffed up and summoned a couple of skeletons (Anomen by this time was level 16 and getting powerful skeletons) and a fire elemental, before popping the next door open. Another ingrate appeared, but this time we were ready. Several more much easier combats followed. Then, surprise! One fellow popped out who didn't attack us; turns out he was the missing kid from the Sver-whatsits settlement. He ran back to let his dad know he was OK. One goal achieved!
Now to look for the monster.
The creature's lair was pretty easy to spot, actually; it had a guard at the door to warn people away. Thoughtful. As we neared the pit, the ambiance of the room let us know that Something Bad lurked inside. Poof! The usual spell ups, and we were good to go. Turns out the critter was yet another demon ::yawn:: named Baylor. He put up a brief fight, confused someone and dire charmed another, but he was pretty much dead from the get-go.
To make matters short, we helped G. Vidal kill some greater elementals, and he gave us some dinky treasure. He was lucky MC wasn't with the Bad Boyz crew; they'd have shaken him down for more. Several rewards were collected from town, another wandering party of Drow was defeated (MC was starting to see why the locals back in Athkatla had been somewhat hostile towards Viconia), Among the items received was a gem of Light, to enable us to get aid from some mysterious gal we hadn't met yet, but who apparently lived in an area affected by a power blackout.
It looked as though the region had been pretty thoroughly explored, when the group stumbled upon a bridge guarded by some Cute-Toes. What toes? They were more damned smelly fish folk! Could that be the bridge to the long forgotten Watergate? Some more villainous monsters were dispatched to their creator, and the group prepared to explore further.