Terra Povos: The Deep Dwarf Who Can Somehow Corrupt ANYBODY

We’re heading back to try to capture the Duergar who jumped ship. 

Ugly Kevin wants to take the Tainted Rose. Archibald is okay with this; Whisper is uncomfortable about it. We okay it, and we have now acquired a pinnace, which we plan to rechristen Pinnace McPinnaceface once we get back to the docks. We also inherit Bromilda, because the tainted rose is too large for her to haul. 

We have also leveled up. 

We sort out how to do this. We’re basically going to make the dinosaur do most of the work. We approach the spot where the lifeboat left off, and there’s a ship ahead of us that has smoke coming off of it. We suspect that this is our target, and that the egg has probably hatched. 

The boat is pretty well towards shore, and we have one bolt for the ballista that we pulled out of Rose. James is now using it as a spear; it’s his lucky bolt.

The boat is following the edge of the lake, and is drifting a little ways back from a tunnel. The boat has dead bodies on it. They died violently, but from stab wounds rather than fire; none of them are red-headed or duergars. We check it out anyway, and it looks like most of their heads were bashed in by a very large flail. It looks like food and water were taken, 

We can see a couple of braziers burning on the shore inside the passage; these guys seem to be regular sailors. 

We move as far into the cavern as we can manage. We leave Bromilda to guard the boat. In the distance we can see a couple of goblins, but nobody really out and about in the cavern

We arrange it so that it looks like Lithos is bringing in a bunch of prisoners. Whisper has rigged the ropes to look legit, but actually they can be shrugged off. The two guards come over and are very disturbed by the arrival of prisoners; Scrit and Scrat are alarmed at the mention that they were following Brinja. 

As we’re about to jump them, a door opens and a pretty dwarf lady emerges. She calls out a second dwarf woman, an exceptionally pretty one named Astrid. Astrid saunters over to check the ropes; she clearly knows from rope play. 

Whisper blackjacks her. Kelda and Gaird run inside. One of the goblin guards runs away. Amergin tries to clock him, but he gets away. Lithos looks at the other goblin and says, “Dude. Walk away.” He runs after the first guard. 

We tie up the courtesan. Amergin: “We need a hostage at this point.”

Pythia sighs. “I’ll go knock.” We follow her over to where the dwarves went. We talk them into opening the door. We show them that their friend is still alive. 

Whisper and James, meanwhile, have gone after the goblins. The dwarves introduce themselves as Gaird and Kelda, and the courtesan Astrid. This is their piece of shit tavern in the smugglers’ cove. They don’t want any trouble, and they hate “that red-headed bitch”. 

Pythia notices a bit of a mark on Kelda’s face, says something sympathetic, and heals it. 

Brinja came through her with her Duergar; they stole one of the carts and a couple of the lizards, fleeced them for supplies, and left. The Duergar didn’t look good; she doesn’t think they’ll go far before they have to rest. 

They calm down a little bit, and set out a bunch of drinks. They came in to port on a ship, killed all the sailors. She’s gone down the tunnel. 

Meanwhile, Whisper and James are outside the door the goblins retreated into. They try to kick in the door, but fail. They start looking for another entrance, but the stables are carved out of the side of the cavern. They start assembling a fire. 

Goblins: “We give up! You can have our best spear. Wait! No! You’re going to kill us.” 

They light the door on fire. 

Meanwhile, Lithos suggests that we should look around through the inn just to make sure that Brinja isn’t here. 

The goblins open the door, lay down their spears, and go cower in the corner. Simple Bof starts saddling up lizards to the cart. James takes the spears. Whisper sidles up to Simple Bof, who is albino and not that smart. Whisper gives him a platinum piece. 

He runs across to the inn, finds the tray of drinks, drinks all of them, and drops dead(ish). Apparently Brinja kidnapped some of their family members and told them to poison us. Barrelhand and Flintbeard are the husbands, and Astrid’s son Queely. There’s also a halfling cook named Cottur, who’s pretty broken-up about Queely being gone. 

We get better info this time around: they did go down the tunnel, about two hours ago. The Duergar really did look bad. And the main reason that Brinja took the cart was because they were taking hostages. 

We get on our new cart, promise the lizards extra mushrooms, and head out moving doubletime. About three hours later we come up to a bend with a little barricade, where they are camping. We stop 100’ out. 

We cast Obscuring Mist on Whisper; he and James move up very slowly, carrying the mist with them. One of the guys looks over the barricade: “I hear something!”

Brinja comes over and is looking out into the distance as well. They’re suspicious, but they haven’t spotted us yet. 

They come a little closer. Brinja says: “I do hear something. Wake up the duergar!”

They continue to advance slowly, and the rest of us follow about forty feet back. Brinja and the duergar are accompanied by two “guards” who are actually the husbands; there’s a child tied up at the back of the camp. Pythia casts Shield of Faith and Magic Weapon herself. She is ridiculously loud. 

Brinja pulls something off a necklace and throws it through the fog, targeting Pythia. It's a red gem that explodes into a fireball; she has a necklace of them. We take damage. 

The Duergar enlarges himself and comes stomping out, swinging a really large flail around. Lithos tries to hit him with a Ray of Enfeeblement. Amergin heals Lithos and then moves up. 

One of the husbands charges into the mist, sees James, and swings but misses. The other guy tries the same thing and also misses. “I’m sorry, they’re making me do it!” 

James: “So I’m not not supposed to kill you? Are you Brimble-Bramble and Fistbeard? Could you continue running that way and let us go get the boy?”

They don’t think we’re going to win. 

James: “I don’t want to stab him but he’s not making me not want to stab him…” He looks at Whisper. “Should I kill him?”

Whisper gestures. 

James tumbles past  them, and they swing but miss. Whisper is now flanking them. Whisper moves past them as well and goes after Brinja. Surprise! He tries to stab her but misses. She takes a step back throws another fireball. Baldy goes down, 

Pythia heals Archibald and then moves forward. If she can get to the Duergar, she can do some real damage. Durnak the Duergar attacks Pythia but misses. 

James tumbles past Durnak, and cimes up beside Brinja. She attacks with a spear and does a bit of damage. Lithos tags Durnak with Ray of Fatigue, and Amergin drops Entangle, hoping that the rogues can cope. Of our enemies, only Brinja avoids being entangled. Whisper and James avoid being entangled. Archibald convinces the two husbands that they should be on our side, and loads his crossbow. Whisper moves up on Brinja and tries to stab her; they miss each other. 

Brinja takes a five foot step back and throws another fireball. Durnak swings at James and misses completely. James steps forward to follow Brinja, but misses. 

Lithos drops Glitterdust, blinding the two husbands amd making both of them and the Duergar glow; if he turns invisible again it won’t do him any good. Brinja reaches up for her necklace, finds no stones. She tries to stab Whisper but misses.  Pythia heals Amergin. 

Lithos fires off a Magic Missile at the Duergar, and does him some damage. Amergin fires off Flare and blinds the duergar. Whisper attacks Brinja and does a bit of damage. She attacks Whisper and misses. Lithos drops Glitterdust and blinds the Duergar and Brinja, and also Whisper by accident. Amergin cures Archibald, who shoots the duergar. Whisper manages to stab Brinja, who goes down; Pythia moves in and attacks the Duergar, doing quite a bit of damage; he ripostes but misses because he’s blind. 

Lithos tags him with Acid Splash, doing a tiny bit of damage. Brindlebeard manages to break out of entanglement and hits the Duergar. Archibald moves in towards Whisper and James as the fog dissolves. Whisper (blind) feels his way over to James and makes sure he’s still breathing. Pythia carves into the duergar, who swings at her and kills her. Lithos throws another Acid Splash and hits. Archibald attempts to move in and stab the duergar, crits and takes the fucker down. 

We move to check on Pythia, but she’s legitimately dead. 

We collect a +1 Heavy Flail and a +1 Chain Shirt, Brinja had a +1 Mithril Chain shirt and and masterwork shortsword and masterwork light crossbow.James claims the Heavy Flail, since it’s magic and will adjust to his side. We now also have three hostages and an egg. Whisper takes the Mithril chain shirt.

At this point we’re standing on 1,381 GP. 

The egg has a leathery shell, and it’s kind of soft and pliable; something is definitely moving inside of it. We’re pretty sure it’s not the world turtle. Now that this thing has been freed from the stone, whatever’s inside is going to hatch… but it’s not healthy. 

Amergin heals it, and it starts to hatch. We get this little Bowser-turtle thing coming out. It attacks Amergin, doing a bit of damage. Amergin tries Calm Animal, but it is not an animal. Whisper stabs it from behind. It goes after Amergin again, but misses. Lithos tries Ray of enfeeblement, but the spell bounces off its shell. 

Amergin manages to hold it down, and Whisper stabs it again. Archibald stabs it as well. It’s healing, though – way faster than it should be. We beat it down, but we’re kind of stuck since it keeps healing. Whisper ties a water skin around its head, and we tie it up with a shitload of rope because while we can’t kill it, it isn’t all that strong… yet.

We are now in possession of  baby Tarrasque. 

May the gods help us all.