DnD Interlude: White Plume Mountain 12

We're picking back up after the episode I missed last week. This should be the final battle.

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Knowledge Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

Snow has snuck up ahead. The room is dark, and there's a full scale statue of an adult dragon that seems to be falling apart in the center of the cavern. The statue is positioned to look as if it's roaring to the heavens; it also looks... battered. Possibly Keraptis turned to stone at the end of the battle? Or maybe each of the three wounds fits one of the weapons? Snow investigates, and yes: the statue looks as if the weapons could be inserted into those "wounds" like keys into a lock.

It's a pretty big room, large enough that Snow can just barely see the back from the door; about 90' across. Nil asks Whelm if they know what would happen if we insert them into the statue. Nil and Thelmor both receive visions: the three weapons plunge into the body of the dracolich, a painfully loud roar that shakes the cave, and finally the flesh turns to stone. Apparently that was how they sealed Keraptis away.

Thelmor: "Do you think it's worth it to undo the seal and beat him a bit more before we look for the gem?"

Wave: "It will weaken him, and he might even lead us to his soul gem. It is worth a try, but we will need to utterly defeat him if we're to seal him away again." 

Nil: "What if we just smash the statue?"

Perfect: "I don't even think that's possible. We're talking about an undead dragon-wizard; it'll either undo the seal on its own, or it'll be like trying to break a brick with a toothpick."

Nil: "That makes sense."

Grey: "My preference would be to find his gem, smash it, and then... say... drop the ceiling of the cavern on him from a good safe distance."

Sunrise: "My concern is that he clearly isn't powerless even now."

Snow: "I could probably search his stuff unnoticed." The cavern has different levels of terrain, and there was some water in there somewhere, so there are plenty of areas that she didn't search on her first look.

Snow, Thelmor, and Grey sneak back into the room and start searching around. Grey and Snow do the searching, while Thelmor keeps a lookout; Grey happens to come upon something first. It's an old wooden staff, over next to the water on a rock, lying beside a skeleton. The skeleton had an improperly-healed leg; they probably needed the staff to walk. It's decorated with very old leather strips and raven feathers; it's carved with warrior motifs. Thelmor uses a Blood Hunter ability to kind of... pull memories from the area.

As he touches the staff and calls upon the Raven Queen, then opens himself to any knowledge or memory left in the wood. He sees the life of a nordic man -- one who loved the sea and his family and Odin. It's jarring to see that the statue wears no raven amulet around his neck; that's how strong his faith seems. He was an old man, a powerful cleric, but his soul was absorbed into the statue. Something has carried the soul off, while the body was tossed aside. The staff remains, and the staff is far more powerful than it appeared: spells can be drawn from it. Somewhere unimaginably distant, the Raven Queen tastes this memory and rages.

We finish our circuit of the room; there is water here, probably from a spring. It's rich with minerals, and has formed a sort of pool on the western side, and a smaller pool on the eastern side.

Meanwhile back with the others, Fifteen speaks: "I-do-not-mean-to-intrude-but-I-should-tell-you-how-I-can-help. I-did-manage-to-get-ahold-of-some-spell-scrolls-so-I-can-distribute-them-if-needed."

Jhuni: "Okay, we'll keep that in mind."

Shortly after that, the scouts return and bring the rest of the group up to speed, particularly Nil. They're... upset to learn of the old man's fate.

Thelmor: "The rage of the Raven Queen quakes in my soul, and I want to see Keraptis dead. So I brought you his staff."

We wait while she inspects the staff; it's a staff of healing. (Cure wounds, lesser restoration, or mass cure wounds.) It will also serve as a weapon, if needed.

Nil: Did you find the soul gem?"

Thelmor: "No."

Grey: "There were a couple of pools and we didn't really search down in there, but we checked the rest of the room fairly thoroughly."

Nil: "Then... we wake him and kill him again? There's no real advantage to destroying the soul gem first, and it'll be easier to search once it's dead."

Perfect: "I must say, I'm very happy I came with you all. You're quite the group." He goes around the circle complimenting us.

Grey, deadpan: "And apparently we've found the perfect employer."

Perfect: "I knew you'd come around."

We enter the cavern: Nil, Perfect, Jhuni, Thelmor, Fifteen, Grey, Sunrise, Snow. Approaching the statue, we stop to prepare: Sunrise throws a bardic inspiration on Thelmor, Grey drops Haste on Snow, and Perfect gives Thelmor a head-scritch and a bit of Battlemaster bonus (8 temp HP) too. Sunrise reminds us not to get caught in her lightning, then starts her song. With our preparations complete, the three with the weapons step up to the statue.

Perfect gives a countdown, and everybody inserts their weapons into the statue. A little ripple of pressure spreads through the room; the statue trembles and crumbles and explodes -- forcing the three of them back, though nobody loses their footing. In its place is a figure carrying a staff that has a large gem on the top of it. He's wearing a helmet, but it looks like Keraptis.

The air in the room seems to move with him as he sucks in a breath and sighs: "I was wondering when I'd get out of there."

Nil: "Quick question: would you like to make easy for us to kill you?"

Keraptis: "Now why would I want to do that, when I made it hard for my own children?"

Nil: "Right. Lightning!"

Sunrise drops a lightning strike on him. It's amazingly bright in the darkness; a moment later the lich is dragon-shaped, with a glow coming from inside its chest.

Sunrise: "Look, I turned him into a dragon!"

Keraptis: "And I'll turn you into a corpse!"

The ground shakes, and the various bones and skeletons start to rise around us.

Jhuni does her best to look surprised. The fallen cleric's bone remain where they are, at least. We're surrounded by skeletons and flame skulls - floating skulls surrounded by fire.

Perfect opens with an attack on the flame skull in front of him, damaging it but not taking it down. A flame skull pops up in front of Thelmor, cackling, and casts Scorching Ray. Snow opens by adding Zephyr Strike to her Haste, then zips around in a curve to reach the dracolich. Unfortunately, her attacks bounce off its scales -- except for the last one, which catches on bone and almost knocks her rapier out of her hand. She retreats again. The dracolich swishes its tail, but misses Snow. Grey also attacks, also misses, and dashes away to the side; the dracolich takes a swipe at him but misses. Sunrise moves back and hits the dracolich with a lightning strike; her goddess approves of this.

The pool of water surges up and tries to pull Grey in, but he manages to grab a rock and not get swept in. The same thing happens to Snow at the other pool, and she's both worried and wet. Well, and furious.

Thelmor smacks one of the flaming skulls, twice; it's definitely out of sorts, but it doesn't go down. It hisses at him, possibly in Gnomish. An unusually burly zombie comes at Thelmor, but misses him. He dodges and snarls. Another zombie stumbles over to Nine and hits him. Jhuni drops a fireball on Keraptis and two of the flaming skulls; Keraptis soaks some of it, and the fire skulls just laugh.

Keraptis attacks Sunrise and does some damage; she drops a Hellish Rebuke on him in return. Perfect squares up with the skull in front of him, but it attacks Jhuni with Magic Missile instead. (Ouch.) Nil raises Whelm and calls out, "The weapons of your children will defeat you!" They throw a pulse wave to tag two skulls and the dragon, doing some damage and pushing them back.

The dracolich roars, terrifying us with its Frightful Presence; Nil, Sunrise, and Thelmor all resisted and are now immune. The dracolich tries to claw Nil, but misses; Perfect, on the other hand gets both clawed and bitten but doesn't go down. Nine, meanwhile, claws the heck out of the zombie that attacked him earlier; it does not look happy.

Flaming skulls attack Grey and Thelmor, but miss. Perfect passes his attack to Thelmor, who uses it to attack the flaming skull in front of him. The skull retreats, and Thelmor smacks it again on the way out and shatters it. Snow moves around the edge of the room but is still too terrified to do anything else; Grey ducks behind a rock and stabs one of the skulls, but doesn't do a lot of damage. The dracolich uses its tail to attack Thelmor. Sunrise hits the zombie nearest her with Dissonant Whispers and sends it scrambling away. The dracolich drops a sphere of magical darkness over part of the group. Thelmor elects to move forward until he find the dracolich; then he stabs it with Wave. As he rips a chunk out of its ribs, he sees a giant glowing amethyst where its heart should be. Meanwhile, a zombie lumbers up to Grey but punches the rock instead of him.

Jhuni tries to counter the Darkness with Light, but the cantrip fails against the more powerful spell. She drags Fifteen out of the darkness and throws a witch bolt at the zombie that attacked Grey. One of the skulls tries to fry Grey with a scorching ray, but misses. Nil throws out Beacon of Hope, giving us some advantages and improves any healing we get. The dragon decides that it's pretty done with this, and bites Thelmor. It claws at Nil but misses, but the other claw glances off Perfect's armor for a mild scratch. Nine rips into something, presumably the zombie; we can hear it but not see it. Fifteen maneuvers to stay out of danger, and a flame skull fails to tag Sunrise with a fire ray. Perfect directs Thelmort to attack for him, and he takes another chunk out of the dragon.

Snow ducks behind a rock (on the far side of the cavern from Grey) and stabs the absolute crap out of a zombie, then places her Hunter's Mark on the thing; then she hits it again, because Haste is a lovely thing. Snow retreats again and finally shakes off the Frightful Presence. Grey casts Mirror Image, then manages to shake off Frightful Presence; both of us owe Nil thanks for that Beacon of Hope. Sunrise drops a fresh lightning strike between the dracolich and one of the skulls; the dragon roars in pain, and the skull shatters.

The dragon is very irritated by our stubborn refusal to die; he summons a swarm of insects around Grey, which tear into him and the bad guys around him. Thelmor drops an amplified Blood Curse on the dragon, and just lays into the thing with Wave. He hits it so hard its gem falls out. The dragon tries to counterattack, but misses so badly that it smacks the gem away from itself, all the way to the back wall.

A zombie attacks Perfect, but misses; another tries to attack Grey but hits one of his duplicates instead. Jhuni holds another round of Witchbolt on the zombie nearest Grey, then drops a fireball between the dragon and the zombie. The dragon lashes out and smacks more of Grey's mirror images. The zombie and Nine are still going at it in the darkness. Nil uses their new staff to throw Mass Cure Wounds on everybody nearby. The dracolich moves to attack Thelmor, but Sunrise says something insulting and throws him off his bite attack. The claws, unfortunately, connect. Keraptis also shoots a look at the bard.

Fifteen again offers its services. "Let-me-know-if-you-require-my-assistance."

The skull retreats, and Grey tags it as it goes; it spits out a flaming sphere and rolls it into Grey. He dodges, but still takes a bit of fire damage. Perfect turns to the zombie behind him and smacks it.

Snow drops her hunter's mark from the zombie and sets it on Keraptis instead; then she moves in, stabs him twice, and retreats. Grey crosses the room and smacks the gem with the hilt of his dagger, cracking it. The dragon is utterly enraged: "HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!"

Then the dracolich starts beating its wings to try and fly, and the buffeting winds knock Perfect Prone; Thelmor and Nil, however, keep their feet and attack it as it's trying to get away. Nil swings but she's holding both the hammer and the staff, and the hammer goes flying out of her hand and nearly clips Thelmor. Thelmor, on the other hand, spears it through the tail and rips it off; the bones begin to crumble and dark fire bursts out of the decaying body and pours into the gem. Grey barely dodges out of the way in time. 

Keraptis is defeated, but its minions are still trying to kill us.

Sunrise drops more lightning on a zombie and a flame skull. The flame skull asplodes, but the zombie remains upright. The darkness and the bugs both disperse with the dracolich's loss of concentration. Thelmor perforates a zombie with Wave, and it goes down. Another zombie wanders off into the water, apparently deciding that it's had quite enough of this. Jhuni casts Magic Missile and sends some missiles over to the remaining flaming skull, and another to the zombie fighting Nine.

Nil decides that now is the time to Turn Undead, and between that and the rest of us we clear out the remaining zombies and flame skulls. Nil then brings Whelm over, and Grey steps aside. The gem cracks a little more with every hit, until with a final, shattering break a loud, corrupted roar fills the cavern and the souls that were trapped with the dragon fly free. Thelmor feels the relief and pleasure of the Raven Queen, while Sunrise feels her goddess's approval. Nil receives a solemn nod from Odin. The rest of us have the satisfaction of a job well done. The shattered pieces of the gemstone have gone back to normal amethysts; we gather them up and go drop them in the lava (using the tunnel behind Doc Pep's current shop).

We go to inform Bluto that he's free, and Thelmor breaks off to collect the werewolves and recruit them for the order of the lycan. Snarla and her boyfriend elect to remain behind; the werewolf from Bluto's men is all in on this, though. We all troop out of the mountain.  Snow goes to see if she can find Gussalen for a bit of post-adventure romance.

Doc Pep is thrilled to see us, and leads us back to the lava via the cave behind his current "shop". The amethyst pieces shimmer and melt into the lava, taking with them the last possibility of dracolich-related danger.

We stop again to clean up at Stormvale, then return to Pinehost. Perfect runs off to get the other two nobles, and we gather in Perfect's home. We each receive 4,095 GP after selling off all the loot. Perfect finishes exlaining how we got all these weapons back; Derdruda has an expression like "Oh gods, he's still talking..." which pleases Snow.

Selinar nods.

Thelmor: "What do you wish, Wave? Do you prefer to go back to your former owner, or stay by my side?"

Wave: "I feel that I would do far more good and right far more wrongs by your side than by remaining with my family. My family does not need me anymore."

Derdruda slams her hands on the table: "Are you saying that you--"

Selinar waves her to silence: "I and Wave have gotten along very well, but I agree. Wave is far more capable and effective in your hands than mine. If that is what my dear friend wishes, then I will let him go. May he help you as he has helped me."

Derdruda is grumpy, but it's not her decision to make.

Nil is tempted, but she and Sunrise both feel that Whelm should be with her family. Derdruda accepts the hammer's return with a bit of impatience and even more relief. Nil asks for access to Derdruda's library and perhaps lessons in Dwarvish.

Derdruda: "I suppose I'll have to write you out a letter of recommendation."

Grey: "These weapons have gotten me interested in making something of this order for myself."

Derdruda: "That would be my area, I suppose. Very well."

Sunrise pulls out a notebook: "I have thoughts about alliances and trade agreements, but more importantly... I would like a title of nobility."

Selinar nods. "I believe we can find a spot. In fact, I believe you should work with me on that. Agreed."

They start writing down plans.

Jhuni: "I'm in it for the money -- but Nine needs a place to stay."

Perfect: "Don't worry, I'll take care of him."

Jhuni: "And a book for Fifteen."

Perfect: "Easily done." It turns out to be a signed copy of one of Volo's works, very rare indeed.

Snow: "So... as I recall, the terms were any one boon within your power to grant? Is that correct?"

Perfect: "Just so."

Snow: "So, I could ask for almost anything, no matter how much it displeased you, Perfect. But... I want you, Perfect, to owe me." Then she stands up and walks away.

"You know," says Perfect, "I don't believe that Tabaxi likes me. I can't imagine why."

Grey heads off to an artificer to work on creating the magical artifact of his dreams. Thelmor and Wave head off in search of adventure, taking Bluto's former armsman off to be trained in how to deal with lycanthropy. 

I won't say we all live happily ever after, but this adventure ended well.

DnD Interlude: White Plume Mountain 11

 I was out for this one, but my friend Silvercat was kind enough to take game notes; for the sake of consistency and easy access, I'm adding them to the collection here.

We leave the library with our new friend in tow. We recap - we don't need the soulgem before we fight the dracolich, but we'll need it to destroy it completely. Thelmor points out that he isn't actually a native of the material plane, but we can't figure out if that means he could poof off with the soulgem.

We head for the last room we haven't explored. Nil listens at the door and doesn't hear anything from inside. Snow sneaks in. The room is a large open space, except for five foot platforms. The light strip from the main room cuts off in the hallway, so its completely dark. On each of the platform is a high detailed stone figure of a lying gnome. Each one is different. Snow thinks they might be death memorials on tombs. There's about 20 of them.

In the walls are a bunch of blocks with handles and etched writing that Snow can't read - probably Gnomish. On the back wall there are a couple of the rectangle columns and a small alcove with a statue of a Wizard holding a staff with a dragon twisting around it and a draconic writing on his robe.

Snow comes out to tell us about.

We're thinking it's a catacomb.

Nil is annoyed that knowledge clerics don't have comprehend languages. Jhuni, however, does as well as speaking draconic. Nine and Fifteen stay in the back. Nil and Jhuni go first. Jhuni tosses in a lit ball bearing to see if anything will attack it. The new shadows are creepier than they were. We can now see that the statues are dark stone. The statue on the back glints with gold and its dragon staff is holding a black gem.

We all are immediately suspicious of the gem. On the back wall is inscribed in Draconic: Eternal Rest for Followers of Keraptis.

Jhuni casts Comprehend Languages to read the Gnomish on the other walls. It's a list of Gnome names and epitaphs. Each dais has a fancier epitaph and names with titles. Nil casts Detect Magic. The statue is covered in conjuration magic.

Jhuni asks Fifteen if it knows anything. The statues are past masters - some it knew, some it didn't. The big statue isn't a gnome. We remember we saw him in a vision - it's Keraptis. We decide to go through the drawers.

Snow can tell if there are any undead within a mile. There are. It's not a very precise spell.

Jhuni tells Fifteen to stay outside in case something bad happens. Snow uses her disguise to look like Keraptis. Honey keeps lookout while everyone else starts opening a drawer. A mechanical beetle flies out of each one. Inside are bones and personal items.

The beetles attack us. Snow stabs one and destroys it. The next one is hurt, but not down. Thelmor slashes one with Wave and then stabs it. It dies. Sunrise stabs one with her rapier and gives Snow a bardic inspiration. Perfect hits the one Snow damaged and it falls to pieces. Nil pulls out a jar and commands one of the beetles to go inside. The last one goes after Snow and bites her with poison. Jhuni firebolts it and it explodes in Snows face.

There are 144 drawers. Nil thinks if there are bodies in the drawers they're more vulnerable to looters and so less likely to have the soulgem. We want to switch to destroying the statue. Whelm doesn't want to destroy it because it's pretty, but the other weapons want to fuck it up. Jhuni promises to mend it afterward. Jhuni grabs the stone with Mage Hand. She feels something like a spell powering up and everybody hears something in a strange language (gnomish), which Jhuni can translate: "To those who disturb our eternal rest, May your ears bleed from our screams of rage."

We back out of the room and Jhuni fireballs the statue. Horrible noises start and a pink blob thing appears. Nil figures out it's a Gibbering Mouther. We decide to destroy it from afar, with Nine closing the door between each attack.

Sunrise throws a dagger at it, as she has no other applicable ranged attacks. It doesn't do much. Snow's got nothing. Jhuni, naturally, Fireballs it. Thelmor shoots it with two crossbow shots. The monster tries to run at us, but its slow and we're far away. But we hear something else happen - there's buzzing getting louder and louder from drawers that were blasted open.

Nil reads its thoughts, but isn't happy about it. It's thousands and thousands of voices - it wants to be more. Nil suggests that it not attack us or approach us. Sunrise and Snow can't do anything. Jhuni fireballs the monster and kills it along with a few of the beetles, moves up, and fireballs a swarm. The buzz doesn't lessen - the beetles apparently don't mind fire.

Thelmor moves up and shoots the swarm. One swarm surrounds Jhuni but doesn't do anything. The other attacks Thelmor, biting and poisoning him. Nil moves up and calls a Guardian of Faith. Nine runs forward and attacks the swarm surrounding Jhuni. He squashes a ton of them.

Sunrise comes in, but can't get close enough. Snow runs in, provokes the swarm by Jhuni which misses, and casts Hunter Mark on the swarm by Thelmor, before stabbing it a bunch, and then moves away. Jhuni fires a witch bolt at the swarm around her and takes out some. "Ha! That's how it's supposed to work, you bastards!" Thelmor stabs the swarm around him, then teleports next to Nil. Nil's Guardian smacks the heck out of the swarm. The swarm tries to attack the Guardian, which, naturally, doesn't work.

Perfect tells Nine to get them. Nine misses. Nil puts the heal on Thelmor. Nine smacks the beetles again and misses again. Sunrise moves up, stabs them, and retreats again. Snow stabs them some more. The swarm is starting to thin out. Jhuni shocks the swarm with Witch Bolt again until the last one falls out of the air. Thelmor turns his flames to electricity, cattle prods the swarm, and it drops dead.

We avoid the goo remaining from the mouther. The hands of the statue have fallen off. The crystal in the staff has changed to a translucent gem. Nil detects magic on the gem - it's nonmagical now. Nil heals everyone up before taking apart the statue with Whelm wile the others go through the open drawers. There's nothing in the statue. In the drawers, we find 105 gold. Nine went through the taller drawers and found a circlet made of electrum. Nil checks it and says "the only magic in this circlet is the magic of imagination." Fifteen doesn't finds some parchments and books and stashes them in it.

We net and destroy the beetles in the remaining drawers. Nil commands one into a jar so Perfect can have it. We find a bunch of copper coins totalling 33 gold. We go to rest in the hot springs room - Snow protests at the idea of bathing in water. While they're resting, Jhuni makes necklaces out of the beetle remains for Nine and Fifteen. Nil inspects the beetle they caught. One of them starts ringing like an alarm clock and slowly transforms into a spider similar, but not the same as before. It has metal wire instead of thread and looks like it's made for jumping - a spider thief.

DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 10

 So, the automatons are possessed by/merged with demons, and are unlimitedly hostile. They're resistant to a number of things, and they explode when they die; and we *really* need to kill them. We retreat to the main room, and combat begins. Snow does her usual: move first, charge in, do some damage (two hits, magic sword, sneak attack, plus gloomstalker ambushery), then disengages right back out. Jhuni follows up with some magic missiles, and Grey calls up an illusionary tiger, which moves up and menaces it. The construct attacks the illusion, but misses so completely that it doesn't realize it's an illusion. Thelmor moves in and pounds on it with Wave, then steps back; it tries to attack him as he retreats, but its metal jaws snap shut without connecting.  Perfect moves up, but doesn't immediately attack; he's waiting to help the rest of us. Nil moves in with Whelm... and Whelm releases a terrifying war cry: "In the name of the Grumblefoots, may your death come swiftly so that your evil will be no more!" Whelm smashes into the monstrosity's face, which crumples in a shower of sparks. The creature promptly explodes, burning Nil a bit.

Another one comes up to the corridor. Nine shoves it back, and Perfect moves in and shoves the door closed; the two of them are holding it closed. One of the wicks slips out, carrying a dagger back to Gossalen.

There doesn't seem to be more than one of them; and there doesn't seem to be much advantage in trying to hold it back. So we let it through, and close the doors on it. We have, somewhat miraculously, trapped it with its head through the door and its body still back in the corridor. It is screeching in infernal, and *not* happy.

Nil: "I didn't come here to be called an embicile by something with your level of intelligence!"

Creature: breathes a huge amount of fire.

Snow moves in, stabs the beasty in the eye, and withdraws. Jhuni moves in, but really isn't tall enough to swap places with Nil.  She advises Nil to duck to the side, slips in front of her, and fires off a spell with a bit of sorcery manipulatin behind it; Grey follows up with a thrown dagger. Thelmor switches to his crossbow, and puts a couple of bolts in the thing's metal face. The first is enough to kill it; the second knocks its head back into the corridor.

Nil and Jhuni shove hard on the door, and the explosion takes place on the far side.

We wait, listening to see if any more of the constructs are coming; they aren't. Nil heals us up, which takes about 20 minutes. We head back into the junk room; there's something, or somethings, or a *lot* of somethings skittering around in the equipment/scrap room. The wicks are still moving in and out too, retrieving equipment for the prisoners. They're not that strong, and it takes them a while. A pair of tiny mechanical spiders follows one of them out. They seem to have tiny spools of thread on their backs.

The first two look around; then more come out, using little blades on their back to carry a bolt of cloth. They seem to be taking it somewhere. Thelmor identifies them as clockwork weavers; they're artificial workers in cloth, and so far they aren't showing any signs of hostility. Thelmor says they can fight if they have to, but they're not really built for that.

Nil attempts to read one of their minds. They are... all about the cloth. They made it; now they need to take it to their master. Then they're going to come back and make more cloth, red this time. One of the spiders spells out an answer for Nil: the cloth is for Snarla. We approach the equipment room carefully, looking for threats, but we don't find any. We do find a loom, and seven spiders preparing it for the next bolt of cloth. Snow goes to help Nil look, and Grey settles in to detect magic.

There's a lot of equipment here, but the armor is mundane and no better than what we have already. There are some minor magical weapons, and more mundane ones. The miscellaneous pile includes ball bearings, candles, cookware, a few rolled-up kits for various sorts of activities; nothing special.

Jhuni's keeping an eye out for money; she stumbles on a bag of ball bearings and finds some coinage underneath. It nets her 5 SP and 6 GP, probably an emergency stake. We head back to the room of prisoners.

Tulgan is putting on his worn, barbaric get-up; he's got his own greataxe back and is looking it over. Gossalen finally seems to be calming down as she's gather her items and putting them in place. Turi has her armor on, and seems to be ready to go; she doesn't carry much. They all look like they're about ready to go.

Gossalen comes over: "Sounds like there were troubles, but it's gone now... and we can leave?"

Thelmor: "The clockwork spiders only attack if provoked, leave them be."

Nil offers that we could escort them back to the second level; one of our comrades has a familiar that can guide them back from there.

Thelmor talks to Turi a bit; now that she has her sword back, she's happy enough to return his aces. Tulgan: "Ready to go? Can't wait to get back to the open air."

We make a quick jaunt back up to the main hall, passing the clockwork spiders along the way. We get them up the ladder, and take them back up to the entrance of the cave; it seems to be afternoon outside. Gossalen is openly thrilled; the other two more reserved. They thank us and go on their way. (Tulgan's got a stock of silver for travel expenses.) Turi blesses us in the name of her pantheon.

We take a brief moment to consider the possibility of just walking away after them. Then we turn back to go murder a possibly-undead wizard. As we turn back, we notice that the steam is swirling around some sort of air elemental.

Thelmor: "This fucker again?"

It stops.

Nil, in primordial: "What is it you want?"

Its dialect is strange: "It is my duty to kill you; then I may be free." Nil is pretty much the only one that understands it.

Nil tags it with Suggestion, and uses her knowledge cleric schtick to read its mind. It... hates its master. A lot. Violently. Nil suggests that it could wait out here while we kill its masters.

This is, oddly, within the bounds of its orders. It will remain here and kill anyone who approaches; we can pass. Also, Nil's accent is boring, which is sad. (OOC: I have never in my life seen *anyone* negotiate with an invisible stalker; this group has done it twice.) We re-locate the invisible trap door, and go back down.

We take another rest in the Tiny Hut.

We somewhat arbitrarily proceed through Door #2 (middle door on the west all). The light strip follows the walls here, just as it does for most of this level. The light is broken up by something against the middle of the far wall. On the floor there are rotten pieces of cloth, moldering pillows... but there's a peculiar arrangement to it; the pillows look like you might kneel on them while regarding the dark... altar? It's carved with dragon claws, dragon wings unfurled; there's a bowl gripped by carved dragon claws, overlooked by a dragon's head. It's a particularly individual dragon; there are specific details.

This is not an altar to a god; it seems to be worshipping dragons. The bowl is metal, well-used, with a symbol on it: the symbol of Keraptis. The altar is potentially an altar to Keraptis; in which case he might actually *be* a dragon.

Nil: "Whelm, did you ever meet Keraptis?"

Whelm: "My creator did."

Nil: "Dragon?"

Whelm: "Yeah... big black one."

Thelmor: "It could be worse. Could be a dracolich."

Whelm and Wave: "Dracolich?"

Thelmor: "Undead dragon."

Nil: "Have you heard the term before?"

Wave: "What we fought was not entirely alive. A dragon whose scales and skin hung from its flesh like drapes."

Whelm: "Any chance we can get rid of it now? It was gross. We sealed him away so he wouldn't do anything worse."

Nil: "How did you seal him? Is he trapped in some way?"

Wave: "We did not know how to end it. We feared it would not stay dead. So we sealed his essence away."

Nil: "So the statue in the crystal cave is...?"

Whelm: "Oh, yes. Actually Keraptis."

Thelmor: "Okay, so has anybody seen a phylactory?"

Jhuni: "I would hide something like that in with a lot of other stuff."

Nil: "Yes, but we used Detect Magic in the junk room. It would have shown up."

She turns, looks at the altar, and walks over to inspect it. The altar is smooth underneath the dust, like it saw a lot of use a long time ago. The bowl looks like it can be slipped out of the claws, and Nil wonders if that's a trap or if it's for ease of cleaning. There don't seem to be any secret pockets in it.

There is an inscription, in several languages. In draconic, "Praise to the all-powerful Keraptis, king to all who live or die."

Grey recalls detect magic. The altar has seen some magic, but isn't any more magic than this whole area; there doesn't seem to be a phylactery hidden inside. We back away from the altar, and use mage hand to work the bowl loose from the carved dragon's hands. Nothing happens. Grey suggests reshaping the statue; Nine rushes over and smashes the head off it. We all congratulate him on a good job. He claims the bowl, which is the first thing he's ever owned.

Jhuni gives him a half geode; it's the second thing that's his.

Nil: "I'm getting the flesh golem a kitten if we ever get out of here."

We head out, and check door #1 (southwest). There are still footsteps behind it, still; we sneak in with surprising skill. (Well, surprising for some of us.)

It's a large room, partly partitioned off. Two bugbears are sleeping on cots. There's also a door on the far side, to the southwest; it's closed. Grey and Thelmor move up and take them out. There's a brief moment of struggle, and then they settle back. Nil moves to the far door and listens there.

There's water moving, probably natural; not much else. She motions us up, and opens the door. There's a man-made hot springs, carved out of the stone; there are rough toothbrushes in custom-carved niches, made of bugbear and boar hair. There's a bar of rough soap... these are oddly kempt bugbears. There are even some cloths piled off to the side, like towels.

There are more etchings here, along the same wall as the cubbies, in gnomish and draconic. Whelm: "Grandpa Keraptis had a lot of gnome followers." Jhuni reads the draconic.

It seems to be an affirmation: "A clean life is a happy life. A happy life is a productive life."

Nil: "Did this asshole make them carve Live Laugh Love in the hot tub room???"

Thelmor picks up a copy of Chicken Soup for the Gnomish Soul, grimaces, and puts it down again.

We give up and head across to Room #6 (southeast). We can still hear clockwork gears behind it, and the rustling of papers. (OOC: "This dungeon supplies all the affirmations in Mega City One. We have to shut it down!")

Jhuni takes the lead on this one.

It's very clean; there are huge bookcases, shelves built into the walls. Some of the books and scrolls look very old and very used, while others are freshly bound and new. A bunch of odd little mechanism are walking around, books and scrolls floating around them. They have a single eye at the top, and seem to be using telekinesis to hold the books so they can read.

The books look like magic and magical theory. Jhuni spots one by a very famous dragonborn sorcery, and then it's carried off out of sight. Jhuni: "No fire in there. No fire in the library."

Nil: "Do we need anything out of there?"

Jhuni: "Not until after we deal with Keraptis."

After bringing us up to speed, Jhuni goes back in. "Hello?"

Robot voice: "How-may-I-help-you?"

Jhuni: "Anything on phylacteries?"

Robot Librarian: "Of-course-follow-me."

It leads her to a book on liches and phylacteries. Jhuni: "What about Keraptis' phylactery?"

Robot: "My-knowledge-is-of-the-library-and-its-books."

Jhuni flips through the book to be polite, and finds a section on dracoliches. "Could I get a copy of this section, the bit about dracoliches."

Robot: "The-book-cannot-leave-the-care-of-the-library-autonomons."

She negotiates for a reading room for us, and we all troop in.

The account is a mix of common, draconic, gnomish; it has quite a bit of information on dracoliches. Only the most narcissistic dragons choose this past, as it severs their connections to their gods. They are cunning and manipulative. There's a ritual that involves a special brew and cultists or mages; it produces a gem that functions as a lich's phylactery.

What sort of gem? Well, black, for a black dragon. A black pearl, a bloodstone. Jhuni starts pulling out semiprecious and not at all precious stone. Somewhere in there the robot librarian gets very excited about meeting non-gnomes. Nil and Jhuni are both ready to adopt them. It sounds like they were built by gnomes, and the gnomes set the rules.

Robot librarian: "I-can-technically-do-what-I-want."

Nil and Jhuni at the same time: "You should come with us!!!!!"

Gods, we've adopted a mechanical librarian and it's CUTE. It has a name in the machine language, but it was fifteenth in its line so we can call it fifteen.

Yeah, we've adopted a librarian. Does Jhuni have Find Familiar? Not really. But Fifteen has a book with that spell, and she adopts him as her familiar. His telekinesis doesn't affect anything except paper and books and scrolls and such; but that's still a lovely quality in a familiar.

We stop there.

DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 9

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

Nil has claimed Whelm temporarily; we've taken a long rest; and the next step is to return to Sir Bluto. We've kind of lost track of how long we've been in this dungeon, but we're feeling a bit better. Whelm tugs at Nil's mind: "I see secret!"

Nil: "What's a secret?"

Whelm: "There's a secret in here!"

They play a bit of Hot or Cold, moving away from the door; apparently there's a secret door in here. Once she's been pointed the right way, Nil has no trouble finding the door: there's a slight outline in the stone, and something like handles towards the bottom. Grey tries to listen at the door, but it's very thick stone; there doesn't seem to be anything making noise behind it.

We run a rope through the handles and let Thelmor give it a tug. Perfect leans in to help, but his hand slips and he gets rope burn and yanks his hands back off. Thelmor pulls again, and the door swings open.

We're running entirely on darkvision, so we can see pretty easily. The room beyond is small, a kind of closet; there's writing in several languages on the stone is "Door Operation Lever" and there is, of course, a lever beside it. It's obviously very old.

Whelm doesn't find any secret doors. Also, Whelm thinks the lever could look better; it's got scratches.

Thelmor investigates it; the scratches seem to be in a particular area, mainly on the handle. Probably iron gloves or rings; it would be consistent with the heavy armor the dwarf was wearing, but they're in different places and probably came from a lot of different people. There's no good way to tell how recently it was last used.

Jhuni and Grey coordinate mage hands, and pull it down from a safe distance. Something whirs loudly behind the lever; a lot of little movements, rather than one heavy movement. After a moment the noise stops.

Nothing seems to have changed in this room, so we head back through the geyser room. We had west, now armed with all three weapons. The disks have moved aside; now a shimmering rainbow bridge connects the two platforms. Nil checks it with their staff, but the bridge is absolutely solid. Jhuni starts across. There's a sort of crunch when she steps, and every time her foot comes down little ripples of light flare through the bridge. The footing is firm, and even the eruption of a geyser doesn't touch her.

Nil follows. Perfect steps onto the bridge and holds out a hand to Nil; they cross the bridge together.

Thelmor, to Wave: "You see this shit? Look at this. You see this, right? Can you sing a song that goes along with this?"

Wave starts singing to Thelmor. It's mind to mind, so none of the rest of us can hear it. It's something the Nordic tempest clerics would sing. Thelmor attempts to sing along, and Wave adds feedback; he's surprisingly good at it. The bard and the cleric both recognize the song; they've heard it before, though it's more familiar to Nil.

We cross the bridge, while Nil considers the possibilities of visitation rights for sentient magical artifacts. We make our way back, avoiding the pits and whatnot, and find our way back to the canoe room. Sunrise uses the Message cantrip again to contact Sir Bluto. He's surprised: "You're the tiefling, are you not?"

Sunrise: "How many people do you have whispering sweet nothing into your ear down here?"

Bluto: "Not enough."

Sunrise: "We're coming through."

We climb into the canoes and go through again, they help us out on the far side. Sunrise: "Let me guess, you didn't think we were coming back."

Bluto: "No."

Nil: "Look! Look what we found!"

Bluto regards the three artifacts. "...You have all three."

Nil: "That was the plan."

Bluto: "I didn't think you would do it. But very well, my word is my oath." He still looks surprised.

Nine, by the way, is still with us; we stopped by the ziggurat room and send Nine down a tier or two so Sunrise could put her stormcloud in the middle of the room. Sunrise gave him a firm command to tell us if this hurt him; then she zapped him with lightning. He shivered a little. "FEEL BETTER! DO AGAIN!"

He jolted, and calls for more. We spent the next ten minutes throwing a lightning party for the flesh golem.

Nil noted that all the glass in the room was gone. So were the corpses. The room was empty and clean, except for a couple of puddles at the bottom. "Huh," observered Sunrise. "Housekeeping."

The door on the lowest tier is open; as we watched, a small clockwork beasty came scuttling out. Nine saw it, yelped, and climbed back up to us. "No-no."

It found a chunk of Nine that had fallen off, and disentigrated it. It started trying to scuttle up the wall.

Sunrise: "Lightning!" She blasted it, and it exploded. We left.

Now, Sir Bluto regards the flesh golem and looks nervous. So do his men. Us: "We made a friend!"

Bluto: "What do you mean by 'made'?"

Thelmor: "Found. Found a friend."

They settle, since the thing clearly isn't hostile.

Sunrise: "You said to get the weapons, so we got the weapons."

Bluto: "Usually people die trying to do that."

Sunrise: "That didn't seem like a good idea, so we didn't."

Bluto: "Well, I can take you where you need to go. I can't go past a certain point, and you'll have to defeat some bugbears. If I'm seen where I'm not allowed, I might perish."

Sunrise: "Like, Keraptis would try to kill you? Or like, you'd just magically die."

Bluto: "I might just die; there's a spell, and if I cross its boundaries it damages me."

Sunrise: "Could you do something to lure Keraptis out?"

Grey, Thelmor, and Nil consider this. It's a geas, and the only way we know to remove it would be Greater Restoration or Remove Curse, or Wish. Nil has remove curse, but Bluto suggests we save our spells; he believes we're stronger than him by a substantial margin. We decide to come back and clean up here *after* we've defeated Keraptis.

Still, he can point the way and he can tell us what to expect. He guides us past the doors, where Whelm whispers about all the secret doors as we pass through them. We ask him about any other prisoners; he isn't aware of any. He says most of Keraptis' servitors are goblinoids of some order. Nil asks about the people beyond the spinning tunnel; Burkett and Snarla, it turns out, are known to Bluto and his men. Apparently they drop by to visit sometimes, when Snarla's been cooking. Their situation is complicated, but he thinks they're fairly content working here. Also: don't let Snarla bite you.

One of the men: "I got bit by her, and now I'm a werewolf."

Thelmor: "Well, that's okay then. And if we get you out of here, I can take you back to my order and they can teach you how to control it."

He's totally game for this.

We return to the middle passage of the initial split, and to the point where the water control wheel was. Whelm identifies a secret down in the pit, where Bluto is currently climbing. He seems to grab something that isn't there and pulls it open; there's a an invisible trap door with ladder leading down beneath it.

We go down. Bluto and his men follow. The cave here is dark, but lit by glowing crystals of varying sizes that sprout from the floors and ceiling. This seems like the same general look and feel as the cavern from our vision of the ancient battle. The lighting isn't bright here, but it's no longer dark. Jhuni looks around for loose chunks of crystal, and finds a football-sized crystal that she can slide out of its growth. She puts it in her pack.

Bluto and co extinguish their torches, falling back on the light from the crystals, and we all head down.

As we go forward, we begin to see stonework instead of rough cavern. There's a brick arch, which marks the edge of the area that Bluto can safely travel. We take our leave of him. Bluto: "Be careful. I know that you are facing something terrible. Give it an extra smack for me."

Sunrise: "Bugbears?"

Bluto: "Usually at this arch, but I don't see them. This isn't my usual time, so perhaps they're asleep, or changing shifts, or somesuch."

Nil drops an Arcane Eye. There are more arches ahead as the passage descends. It emerges into a larger chamber, where the crystal clutters are gone and masonry walls have covered the rough stone. There's some sort of weird rainbow light coming through one wall. The room opens into a hallway with a high ceiling, all done in delicate stonework. Not quite high enough for Call Lightning, though. The pillars are carved with dragons wrapping around them. There are three doors on either side, and a passage continuing on ahead. Each of the doors has two suits of armor next to it. There are candelabras shaped vaguely like people in the center of the room. The faint line of light encircles the room here as well, and the doors appear to be swollen shut; none of them have keyholes. Each seems to be carved in its own dragon pattern.

The floor slopes down, and the masonry seems even more ornate; the crystals seem to be growing out of the lines of light taking over the cave again. The hallway starts to widen into a huge chamber (this one definitely high enough for Call Lightning). There seems to be a very ornate statue of a dragon's skeleton, positioned in mid-roar and clutching at the ground around it. There are indentions in the statue which might fit the three weapons. The material is gray, probably stone, but polished. There don't seem to be any exits from the cavern; but the cavern itself is familiar. This is the very like the cave where the three weapons came together to seal away Keraptis' evil power.

We transfer Whelm over to Sunrise, and stop to rest again. Once we're back up to full strength, we continue on and come into the hallway.

It really does look like someone has built these rooms to conceal the fact that they're inside a cavern. The candles really are disturbingly human-shaped, and there are about thirty of them. That doesn't really seem to match the number of former adventurers, despite Grey's rather creepy opinion of them. The suits of armor beside each door are small; halfling-sized, maybe.

Magic is strong here; it's all through the stone of this place. Everything here was built to assist with magic and magic-users; it feels like a magic school, or some similar setting. The residue is so strong that it's hard to tell if the armor is enchanted or not. There's more than one school of magic worked through here; but conjuration is the strongest. Aside from Grey muttering about his findings, it's quiet here.

Jhuni floats one of the candles over to Nil, who looks it over more closely. Thelmor comes over to help them. She uses a knife to shave off a bit; and it seems to be wax all the way through; the candle wick doesn't go down the middle, but follows a line down the back. The fingers and thumbs are distinct. Racking our brains, we come up with the fact that these are some sort of magical artifact which is activated by being lit. Jhuni has them associated with some sort of explodery. Sunrise remembers finally: they're living wicks, which can be brought to life by their enchanted wicks. As they burn down, they lose some of their human appearance. They're generally used to short-term servitors, household servitors, and the like. They're obedient to whoever lights the candle, so they can sold, bartered, or like that. If the master demands it, they can consume their entire wick at once to create an explosion.

Grey lights one, and it relaxes into mobility. He pulls it down from the candelabra. "Walk in a circle around me." It does. "See if you can get into one of those suits of armor." It goes and starts disassembling the armor.

Nil asks the candle if it's capable of speech. It turns out that it can speak telepathically to Grey, but that's it. Its memory extends to the moment it was lit; nothing earlier. How long might it live? "I feel like I could last for a fortnight?"

It is filling the room with candlelight, not bright; but just an ordinary candle. Nil and Sunrise each light a candle of their own. We start sending them over to disassemble the rest of the suits of armor. Grey's puts the pieces laid out in a little row; Nil's just dumps them in piles, and Sunrise's just lets the pieces fall where they may. Sunrise claims a candle to study later, then moves around and starts listening at doors. She hears something behind the southeastern door, the northeast door, and the southwest door. There's something moving behind the southwest door, a slow tapping on the stone. The northeast door might have voices. The southeast there's a faint whirring, and perhaps the sound of paper rustling.

We open the northeast door; the voices are now less muffled, but they aren't close. There seem to be two feminine voices speaking common; they don't sound like they're plotting, they sound like they're reminiscing about home. They sound like captives, not bugbears. Snow sneaks ahead, following the hall; that horizontal light is still here, but as long as she stays clear of it she's fine. There's a room with small stone cells on the far side, closed in by steel bars. Three of the rooms are occupied:
-A very tall orc, leaning against the wall; he looks sad.
-An empty cell
-A woman, dark of skin and hair, dressed in simple clothing. She's pacing and talking, and looks antsy.
-An older woman, short and stout, built like a dwarf; she's lying on her bed, fingers laced behind her head. She's trying to sooth the other woman.

None of them have weapons or armor; they don't even have boots. Snow moves in and inspects the locks on the doors; they're about what you'd expect from a prison cell, heavy and thick. Snow reports back, and we decide to get them out. We ask Perfect about them; do they sound familiar?

Perfect: "There are so many... the Orc sounds familiar. The human could be anyone. But yes, they could be captured adventurers. The older dwarf woman definitely rings a bell."

We proceed into the jail room.

Nil: "Do not be afraid..."

The dark-skinned woman in the middle: "Oh my gosh. Get us out. I'd love it you could get us out."

Nil talks while Grey launches into Detect Magic.

The human woman is Gussalen. She's been here... "Too long." She takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. "A day or two? More?" She gives us a date, and it was about five days before we arrived. A bit over a wekk, then.

The orc is Tulgan. He's been here maybe a fortnight. Got separated from his party; doesn't know where they are. Then the bugbears captured him and put him the cell. He saw a knight, but no wizards. "The canoes, right? Told everyone not to go on those things."

Sunrise: "See, this is why you scout ahead."

Tulgan seems pretty chill.

The dwarf woman has a chain around her neck, with a small hammer sigil on it. She it Turi, a paladin of Thor. She's been here the longest; she's not sure how long it's been. Months, she thinks. Have they seen anyone else? "The people who leave these cells don't come back."

Grey finishes his Detect Magic, but pretty much nothing in the room is magic. The stone itself is still swimming with magic.

Snow and Grey fall to, and Turi and Gussalen emerge. Turi is calm and dignified as she thanks Grey; Gussalen throws herself into her rescuer's arms. Grey moves on and releases Tulgan.

Sunrise asks if Tulgan has any hard feelings about Sir Bluto. He doesn't. Gossalen is stroking Snow's fur in a self-calming sort of way. Snow, unsurprisingly, permits the beautiful woman to stroke her.

Nil: "So... we're about to face off with the wizard who runs this place. Would you like to help? Or just get out of here."

Tulgan: "Gonna go return to my career as a sailor."

Nil: "Be sure to check back with your employers."

Turi: "I'd like to find my stuff; I can watch over the others as they go out the door."

Sunrise: "If you don't want to fight, it might be better for you to stay with Sir Bluto and his friends."

Gussalen: "Our armor has to be pretty close."

Sunrise: "I could maybe locate it, if you can tell me what you're seeking."

Turi had a very distinctive greatsword with a bronze inlay and the symbol of Thor on the hilt. Once Sunrise has a really good idea of what she's looking for, she casts Locate Object; it's off to the west.

The prisoners decide to stay here while we go get their equipment. Tulgan has a sailing pin, basically a club; Snow hands Gossalen a pair of daggers; Grey hands another pair to Turi. Sunrise leaves Honey, her familiar, with Tulgan; Tulgan is very sweet to her. Thelmor offers his greataxe to Turi; she takes it and lays it over one shoulder, and smiles.

We head over to retrieve the armor.

The hall is still empty; we check the door, then pull it open as quietly as we can. Snow moves ahead again, sneaking. There's a large room at the end of the hall, occupying at least as much space as the jail and the cells within. It's piled with captured equipment: a pile of leather armor, a pile of wooden weapons, a pile of metal armor, a pile of swords, and like that. Along the walls, there seems to a lot of clockwork scraps: tiny gears, little levers, and the like. Just before she leaves, Snow sees one of the piles move. It stayed still when she went to investigate it. Snow goes back to report.

Nil suggests giving each of the prisoners a candle, and letting them use the candles to retrieve their stuff. Snow heads back to stand at the door, prepared to retreat immediately if anything moves. Sunrise sends the message, and we equip the prisoners with candles. As the candles approach the room, Snow watches the piles of stuff. Their light makes her briefly visible, but Jhuni is positioned to guard her back.

As the candles work, one of the piles moves. From ten feet away, a mechanical crab-claw shoots out and slams into her by surprise. Snow immediately books it back out of the room. The claw takes the opportunity to attack again as she flees, but it misses. Something like a mechanical hand comes out of another pile as well, but she's gone. Jhuni, who was ready for something like this, responds with a firebolt. There appear to be large constructs hiding in the piles of scrap.

We stop there.

DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 8

 At the end of last session we'd made it across the Burning Mud Room platforms and were resting in a Tiny Hut spell before pushing into the last room.

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

On to the Undead Dwarf!

In the next room we find the dwarf, kneeling in front of the hammer and wearing plate armor; he seems to be undead and mostly, though perhaps not entirely, flesh and bone. With, admittedly, a little bit more of the bone showing than any of us would prefer. There's a helmet on the floor beside him.

Thelmor: "Excuse me, sir?"

He looks up. His eyes are bottomless pits.

Thelmor: "You look to have been a fighter, perhaps a paladin. Is this," he motions, "of your own will, or were your forced into this?"

Dwarf: "This would not have been my choice."

Thelmor: "That's... good, since we'd really like to get to the one who chose to be undead, the one who did this to you. Give us a chance, and perhaps the Raven Queen could send you along on your way."

Dwarf: "You speak of the Raven Queen like I'd go to her. I long to see Moradin's forge, to send my own fires at it -- not your Raven Queen."

Thelmor: "It could happen, if you were released from this."

Dwarf: "Someday. Today?"

Thelmor: holds up Wave. "It's possible; third time could be the charm."

Dwarf: "What do you plan?"

Thelmor: "Take the weapons, kill Keraptis, return the weapons to their proper owners."

Dwarf: "Promise to kill him?"

Thelmor: "That's the plan."

Sunrise, meanwhile, has used Message to address the hammer: "Pssst! Talk to you for a sec?"

Something answers, in an inquisitive female voice. It sounds... upbeat. "Hi! Hi, you want to talk? I like talking."

Sunrise: "I like talking, too. We're actually here to free the one holding you and bring you back home. How do you feel about that?"

Whelm the Hammer: "It would be nice not to be in service to Keraptis. The sooner the better, really."

Sunrise: "I think that's what we all want. Is there anything you can do to make it easier to get you out of here?"

Whelm: "Out of here like out of Dolrig's hands? Or out of the mountain."

Sunrise: "Well, both, eventually."

Whelm: "I can't go against Dolrig."

Sunrise: "Can't turn in his hand? Move aside when a blow's coming?"

Whelm: "I can try. And I can tell you what I can do. Careful when he brings me above his head; he's getting ready to make a shockwave that'll hurt people. Don't get too close, but that'll be hard here. If he throws me, I go back to his hand so just stay out of the way entirely. I can fix stuff... I can fix a lot of stuff. Mending."

Sunrise gasps. "I can do that!"

Whelm: "I like you."

The hammer is good with putting down Keraptis, too.

Sunrise: "Really nice to meet you! See you after the battle! I'm Sunrise!" She goes on to recap for the rest of us by way of more Message cantrips.

The dwarf stands and puts on his helmet. "Well, if you're ready. I think this crowd is a bit too much for me. I'd hate to make it easy for you. I'm sure none of the others did." He bangs his hammer on his shield four times, and four earthen figures flow up out of the ground. The battle begins...

Nine, the flesh golem we acquired last time, made it into the room with us; Grey assigns him to hang back & guard Sunrise.

Snow moves first, dropping Hunter's Mark on an earth elemental and attacking it; she gets extra damage from Sneak Attack and an extra attack from Dread Ambusher. Sunrise and Nine move behind a pillar, taking cover but keeping an eye on things. She begin strumming her lute and throws a Suggestion at the dwarf: "You don't want to be here any more than we do! Why don't you take down these elementals and make it go faster."

Dwarf: "Aye, okay, why not?" He raises Whelm over his head, then slams it against the ground. A massive shockwave ripples out, and most of us are stunned; Jhuni, Sunrise, and Perfect are not. Jhuni fires off Scorching Ray, targeting golems and doing some damage. Thelmor shakes off the stun, but Grey does not; two of the golems were stunned, and one breaks free. One of the golems attacks Snow, who is still stunned; it hits her *hard*. The other active one attacks Thelmor with a downwards slam; he staggers but remains upright, taking a rather large amount of damage as well.

Nil manages to throw off the stun. "Please don't do that again."

Dolrig, pointing at Sunrise: "She asked me to!"

Perfect moves up to interpose himself between Nil and one of the golems. He attacks the golem, then calls a commanding sort of encouragement to Snow: "You can take it, Lady Kitka!" She gets 9 temporary HP.

Snow tries to come back to her senses, but fails. Sunrise decides to wait until Dolrig shakes off the suggestion; Dolrig turns and makes a cone attack that takes in a full quarter of the room; Sunrise, Nil, Thelmor, Perfect, and one of the golems are all caught by it. He has made a pressure wave that does force damage and tried (unsuccessfully) to push everybody back. The golem did get cracked into the wall a bit, but everybody else managed to avoid that. Jhuni steps in front of Grey, then drops a fireball on a pair of earth elementals and uses a sorcery point to sculpt it around her allies. FWAKOOM!

They're holding up, though they've obviously taken some hits.

Nine notices the elemental that got slammed against the wall; it's too close to Sunrise for his taste, so he attacks it... and crits. "NO HURT FRIEND!"

Thelmor moves in with Wave, who's a bit distraught at being on fire but tries to go with it. He stabs Dolrig, and then is attacked by an earth elemental who tries to grapple him; Thelmor slips out, and the golem smacks himself hard enough to do real damage. (So much for "hugging it out"...) The last of the golems has come out of the stun, and attacks Jhuni; she shows up Shield as a reaction, and avoids it. The damaged elemental tries to attack Nine, and hits him once but screws up the follow-through so badly that Nine smacks him back instead. Grey is still stunned, and still hasn't snapped out of it.

Nil throws up a Beacon of Hope preparatory to doing some healing. Perfect attacks the elemental in front of him, then hands an extra attack to Thelmor. Both of them hit, and Snow shakes off being stunned; she can move next round.

Sunrise drops a bardic inspiration on Grey: "SNAP OUT OF IT!" Then she leans around Nine and stabs the earth elemental with her rapier.

Dolrig takes a two-handed grip on his weapon. "You really want me to attack me guys? Fuckin' dumbass got stunned for three rounds!" He attacks the elemental, and also Thelmor. He is, clearly, not the most cooperative of suggestees. He also shield-bashes the elemental: "Get in the feckin' ring!" The elemental staggers back, towards Perfect.

Jhuni lets out another round of scorching rays, doing some damage; Nine attacks the elemental in front of him, backhanding it solidly. "Do not touch friend!" That elemental, and the one in front of snow, are both starting to crumble. The other two are battered, but not that bad.

Thelmor drinks a healing potion, and Grey finally shakes off the stun effect.

An elemental takes a swing at Jhuni, who invokes Shield again; it misses, but the next one manages to hit anyway. Jhuni takes damage but manages to stay upright. Another one attacks Snow, but screws the whole entire pooch on this one. It manages to leave itself so completely open that Snow, freshly recovered, stabs it almost by accident; it essentially runs onto her rapier, and loses a chunk of rock from its body. An elemental tries to attack Nil, but misses. (Nil: "Hey! What the hell did I do?") The last one tags Nine fairly solidly, but he shrugs it off and gives it a thumbs-down.

Nil touches Thelmor and drops a *large* healing spell on him; they're not going to be able to do that too often, but it's a huge help. Perfect attacks the one in front of him -- "How dare you!" -- and crits, and cleaves. His blow goes right through the golem in front of him, and hits the one beside it as well. Both are in poor shape after that.

Snow reapplies Hunter's Mark, then attacks the elemental in front of her with a powerful stabbity. It... collapses away from her rapier, leaving behind a decent set of plate armor as the rock melts back into the floor. Snow transfers the Mark to the next elemental.

Sunrise drops a suggestion on Dolrig, then throws a bardic inspiration on Thelmor. Dolrig retreats so suddenly that Thelmor fails to react; he's been convinced to stand off until we finish the elementals.

Jhuni throws Burning Hands on the two elementals in front of her, doing some more damage though not as much as she'd like. Nine, meanwhile, is still trying to keep the fourth elemental away from Sunrise. He doesn't do any damage this round, but he's still in the way.

Thelmor finally shifts to hybrid form, and attacks the elemental beside him. It's looking pretty ragged at this point.

Grey drops one of his minor illusions between two of the elementals, trying to distract the one fighting Nine.

One of the earth elementals turns to swing at wolf-Thelmor, but misses. It growls something in Terran.

Nil, of course, speaks Terran: "Your mother was a gravel pit???"

The next elemental, hearing that insult, turns and takes a swing at them. It mutters something about, "Its mother was a mountain."

Nil: "Its father was a quarry."

It twists around, so angry it's spitting pebbles.

The last one takes a swing at Nine, and then a swing at Grey's illusion but its fist passes right through.

Nil reaches out to heal Jhuni, and Perfect tries an attack and knocks a chunk off his target's shoulder. Snow finishes her encirclement, passing by the dwarf, who takes a desultory swing at her and sort of slaps her on the back with the hammer. It wasn't an attack, though, more of a comment or possibly a come-on. So: no damage, but it shocks Snow out of her advance. "Nae-nae, ye stay here, ye're fine."

Sunrise throws out more Bardic Inspiration.

Dolrig, to Snow: "Hey lass, d'ye want to see what this hammer can do?"

Snow: "...Um, no?"

Dolrig: "Aye well, tae bad because I'm doin' it anyway!" He swings the hammer around and throws it, attacking the elemental and taking another chunk off it. "Impressive, nae? Bet ye wish ye had a weapon like that. If ye want it, ye'll have to kill me for it."

Jhuni throws more Burning Hands on the two elementals in front of her. The one in front of her manages to soak it up, but the one beside it collapses back into the ground. Jhuni: "About time."

Nine is still trying his best, but he stumbles and looks a bit surprised; he just hit himself in the face by accident.

Thelmor attacks the elemental in front of him; the first blow shatters it. The plate armor goes flying across the room. Thelmor slides past Grey's illusion and attacks the remaining elemental; it doesn't shatter, but it's looking a bit... disconnected. Thelmor: "Your first cousin is a Pet Rock!"

Nil hears the response, which is basically: "I know, please don't bring it up." Nil loses it laughing; none of the rest of us have any idea why. 

 

Elemental: "Don't laugh. He's very good at it."

Grey turns invisible and slides up behind the dwarf, apparently unnoticed.

The remaining elemental moves forward, and Thelmor takes a swing at its back but misses. It hits Nine, who's still okay but definitely damaged.

Nil moves over to Snow and drops some healing on her. Perfect makes another attack and gives somebody another move.

Snow moves her hunter's mark to Dolrig: "You wanted to duel? Let's duel!" She stabs him with her rapier, and slips back out and takes cover behind the pillar.

Sunrise looks over at Nil. "Ready for this?" She hands off a Bardic Inspiration. Then she begins playing again, and the tune becomes much jauntier. She then throws a Hideous Laughter at Dolrig. There's a loooooooong pause, and then he falls over laughing.

He recovers almost immediately, but he's still prone. Jhuni drops a Fireball on him, accidentally catching Grey (who's invisible) in the process. Nine, meanwhile, rips apart the last of the elementals, and then sits down on the ground, panting. "I... protect... you. Nine... Did good."

Thelmor moves up next to Perfect, grins at Dolrig, and says: "Now it's time for the real fight." He stabs him twice with the trident Wave. He then drops Searing Brand on the forehead of Dolrig's helmet. Retributive psychic damage for the win!

Grey pops out of invisibility with a fairly massive stab attack. He's now visible, and smoldering a bit from the fireball, but still doing pretty well; and the dwarf definitely notices the dagger in his kidney.

The dwarf is looking pretty battered; not about to go down, but not at full health either. Nil moves in with her quarterstaff and smacks him, then apologizes. Perfect goes for a straight attack with Blackrazor, doing some damage and then backing off. His expression is pure "Let's Get This Done."

Snow slips back up and attacks again, doing max damage with sneak attack and... actually, apparently everything else. She basically just rams that rapier into his eyesocket.

Dolrig: "Ow. Fuckin' ow!"

Snow slides back out between Nil and Perfect; Perfect holds his fist out for a fist-bump.

Sunrise: "I once knew a bard name Kas; whose bollocks were made out of brass; they tinkled together; it made stormy weather; and lightning shot out of his ass!"

Dolrig chuckles but (OOC: Makes his save and) says, "Ye'll have tae do better, I've heard that one." He stands up and starts swinging: Grey, Thelmor, Snow, Perfect. (OOC: 9 for Grey, 14 for Snow and Thelmor (who's resistant, so 7), and Perfect looks fine.) He then takes another full set of attacks, missing Nil, hitting Snow and Perfect, and crits on Thelmor. Of course, owing to Thelmor's brand, he's taken 21 points of psychic damage and has a massive headache. "The feck'd yer feckin' werewolf do? Feck!"

Jhuni lays into him with scorching rays, which can't be comfortable; he's cursing in Dwarvish.

Nine is sitting the rest of this out.

Thelmor towers, grins, and says: "Well wasn't that cute? But it was wrong." He attacks with wave, several times, doing huge amounts of damage. As Dolrig staggers back, the hammer falls from his hand and he's caught on the tines of the trident. We hear a sigh. "Ye know, it's nice even if it's the second time 'round. Thank'ee." He dissolves, the physical pieces dissolving as the less tangible bits drift into the air. We have defeated him, and taken the hammer.

Thelmor kneels in prayer and Nil picks up the hammer. We get a flash into our minds, a stirring around us. A woman, hard at work at her forge. She's working on an obsidian sword, putting the finishing touches on it. As she works, another person walks in behind her: clearly not part of the forge, dressed in noble robes, with a scar across his face. "Crohn! Tell me! Please tell me you have created these weapons, finally."

Crohn: "I have at least the first one." She adds a bit of polish, then hands it to him. When he grasps it, spectral tendrils reach into his chest and pull something from his heart. The blade goes from obsidian to the empty darkness of the night sky.

Her: "Never had your soul touched before? You said you wanted some of your soul in it."

Him: "You're sure this is enough to take my father down?"

Her: "When all three are complete, yes. But the weapons are just weapons. They'll need heroes to weild them."

Him: "If our father comes around..."

Her: "I doubt he will, in our lifetime. The weapons can be passed to our children. Leave me to my work, and I promise it will all be done soon."

The vision fades, and we're all back in the room.

Sunrise Messages Whelm: "Welcome to the group."

Whelm: "Thank you for setting him free. He was a good one. He deserved a better end. I think he's happy now. I mean, angry, but happy."

So... the choices for who can actually use Whelm seem to be either Nil (cleric) or Snow (ranger), or Sunrise (Bard). Snow is backing out, so it sounds like Nil is currently attuning to it and then we reserve the option to maybe hand it off to Sir Bluto.

DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 7

 We had defeated the the sea elf Kerithlan and retrieved the intelligent magical trident named Wave.

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard (absent)
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

We settle in to check for treasure.
1000 GP in small sacks

2 big gems worth 2,000 each
7 misc gems worth 3,935 in total.
1 big gem woth 5,000
goggles
An odd-looking stone shaped like a cat's head, with one jeweled eye and one non-jewel eye.
There also two more of the Amulets of Turning Resistance.

Nil goes poking around in the sand to see if there's anything else; there are a lot of bones in here that have been picked clean, bits of rusty armor, and other evidence of unfortunate former adventurers. On one bony hand, not quite stripped, is a ring that looks a bit like a shield. It's probably the ring of protection that we discussed back in town.

We detect magic: the goggles, the stone, the trident, and the ring all are magical. The ring is a Ring of Protection, and we turn it over to Sunrise. The goggles are Goggles of Night Vision. The stone is a Stone of Good Luck. The trident, Wave, requires attunement by an elf; +3; on a critical it deals extra necrotic damage; 1d6 piercing, versatile, thrown 30/60. When attuned, you can use it with proficiency. Shape Water and Wall of Water once/day; on command you create a bubble of air around your head so you can breathe underwater. Sentient; Lawful Neutral, with hearing and darkvision, and speaks Aquan; can speak with aquatic animals; when it grows restless it hums tunes, anything from sea shanties to hymns; is not above causing trouble for users who do not stay within its sense of honor.

Thelmor goes to meditate, focusing on the trident, and hears a very somber "My love sailed out to sea..." sort of song. It's not terribly on-key, but at least it does know the tune. As Thelmor tunes in, it stops humming.

Thelmor: "Hello."

Wave: "It has been a long time since someone else has spoken to me. What sort of elf are you?"

Thelmor: "Shadar-Kai. We live in the shadows with the Raven Queen."

Wave: "I do not know your kind. I am not sure that you can work with me, but I look forward to trying."

Thelmor: "So... I'm a blood-hunter, of the Order of the Lycan. Is that going to be a problem?"

Wave: "A blood-hunter?"

Thelmor: "It is a tradition that becomes partly monstrous in order to better battle monsters. And since you are sentient, I wanted to be sure you would not be bothered by that."

Wave: "If you seek to protect, then I do not see a problem."

Thelmor: "I can use lightning."

Wave: "Electric eels dwell within the sea."

Thelmor: "Good."

Wave: "If you hold to your oaths and protect others, especially elves, I will fight with you for as long as you will have me."

Thelmor: "Your former owner was undead; he called us to fight with him, and give him an honorable death."

Wave: "I know. I felt him fall; I felt his spirit leave. I believe he is at peace."

Thelmor: "The Raven Queen will see him to where he needs to go."

Wave: "Then let us fight together."

As the attunement completes, a vision washes over the party: A battlefield, in a dark cave full of glowing crystals. There is a terrible fight between three heroes on one side, and a powerful wizard on the other. The wizard throws terrible spells, while the heroes dodge and attack. At last the wizard falls, and disspates. They talk, afterwards, and put the weapons together: Blackrazor, Wave, and Whelm. We can see what they look like now, and a great power pulses out from them as they touch. It washes over the mountain, making it safe, protecting it. The heroes leave, but the visions linger. One was Thaddeus Giantbane; the other was sea elf Kerithlan; the third is a dwarf, male, less clear... the wizard in the battle appeared to be human.

Thelmor asks Wave about the battle; it remembers. It was the sealing of a dark wizard, a much-needed deed. Every time Wave stabbed the man, it felt a sense of sorrow in landing the blow -- something coming from the man himself. Thelmor consults Perfect to see what Blackrazor remembers, while filling in the rest of us. Perfect focuses, then replies: "Blackrazor says that the weapons were created in part to destroy that wizard. It was Keraptis himself that they fought against."

Nil: "Frustrating that he didn't *stay* destroyed."

Perfect: "Quite. It seems it was only his body that was destroyed."

Thelmor: "That would explain why Keraptis was so eager to steal the weapons and hide them behind these dangers."

Perfect: "Blackrazor is being tediously demanding about us locating the wizard and destroying him."

Nil: "Sounds very high-maintenance."

Sunrise: "Sir Bluto Sans Pite said that the man who framed him had been serving Keraptis, so perhaps he was doing something to wake him up?"

Nil: "The wizard who framed him received instructive dreams, so if we defeat the wizard again perhaps we should seal the mountain against sendings as well."

We take a long rest, and then head back south; that leads us either to the room with the Kelpies, or we can head across through the spinning tunnel. Nil elects to use Arcane Eye to map out the rest of the dungeon before we proceed. Following the third passage (beyond the sphynx), she continues until she finds a door. She passes it through the keyhole, and finds a 30' x 30' square with nine floating spheres inside. They are suspended from the ceiling by wires; they're each about two feet in diameter, and they appear to be silvered glass. She heads back and takes a side-passage, this time finding a door with no keyhole.

The pool in the Kelpie room is about 14 feet deep, and murky. We discuss various ways to get past them; Thelmor decides to ask Wave to talk to them.

Wave: "I will do my best, but these are very strange creatures."

Thelmor: "You can do it. I believe in you."

He walks to the edge of the room, and two gorgeous women pop out from the water. They start in on seductions in lilting tones, inviting him to stay with them forever.

Wave: "We have other jobs to do, other oaths to keep."

The kelpies draw back, nonplussed. Thelmor helps Wave decide how to negotiate with them; Wave says that these adventurers are not worth their time and far too much risk for the kelpies to attack. The kelpies begin to back down; they seem confused, but they agree. "We will stand aside, so long as you do not destroy our home or try to steal our treasure."

Thelmor: "Fair."

They've settled back. Thelmor tells us the deal.

Grey: "Sounds fine."

Snow: "I suppose."

The sphynx, when we return, is looking a lot better; she's clearly been cleaning herself.

Nil: "We drained the water, I hope that's okay."

Spynx: "A novelty; if I miss the water, I can find it."

We start down the east passage. ("Nil takes the lead, with Jhuni following, then Perfect, then Thelmor, then Sunrise, then Grey, then Snow.") Nil is tapping the floor with their staff, because this whole place is full of traps. Like, "Tap-tap-tap-tap-splut."

There's... something... on the ground just ahead. And there's a bit of acid smoking on the end of the quarterstaff. Nil pulls out their alchemist's kit and pours a neutralizer on it. We pull a quick Light cantrip from Jhuni, who is back with the spynx; the floor where the acid is... is green. Nil has found a patch of Green Slime. It usually ambushes by dropping from above, and attacks by secreting acid until removed. Here, it was probably waiting in the muck under the water for some unsuspecting soul to walk into it.

Jhuni steps in momentarily to drop a fire spell on that section of the passage, searing it clean with a bonfire.

Beyond the slime, we find the north-bound side-passage. After some discussion, we decide to ignore the room with the glass balls and take the passage north. The door is swollen against its frame, but Thelmor and Nil are strong enough to open it. We send the Arcane Eye through and pull it closed again. The room beyond is 20' x 30' and there are five kind of horrible, probably undead figures, with rebuilt hands. They're flesh golems, nasty ones.

We drop an illusion of Jhuni in the room... and trigger a riddle:
Five flesh golems are clustered against the north wall. Each has a number on its chest: 5, 7, 9, 11, and 13. Number 5 says, "One of us does not belong with the others. If you can pick it out, it will serve you, and the others will allow you passage. If you pick the wrong one, we will kill you. You have 120 seconds."

Grey steps into the room: "It's nine!"

Nine turns to look at Grey; the other turn back into the corner, just standing there. We come into the room, unmaimed.

Grey: "Would you be so kind as to open that door for us, Nine?"

The golem turns and opens the door. The arcane eye goes through, finding a set of stairs; the passage turns east at the top, and there's a turnstile filling the corridor beyond. It's distinctly a one-way door. The eye passes through, and beyond that the passage turns south again.

Nil: "Apparently we have to go through a turnstile, and there won't be any way back."

Grey sends the flesh golem on ahead; it goes through the turnstile somewhat reluctantly, and then opens the door after a couple of tries. Then it comes back to the turnstile and finds that it can't get back through. It makes little annoyed moaning noises. Grey: "Thank you! Just wait there, please."

Beyond, the arcane eye lets Nil see a room with a floor of boiling mud; the route to the other side is a series of wooden platforms suspended by chains from ceiling. There are two spots where the mud is exceptionally hot, and after a moment the northern one bursts open and sprays a geyser of boiling water beside the platforms. There's a ledge beyond, with a door. It does look like the geysers present a real danger. The disks, chains, and the ceiling are covered with a wet, slippery algal scum; it gives off a feeble phosphorescent glow. The cave floor is fifty feet below the platforms; the ceiling is fifty feet above them.

The geysers appear to be going off on a fairly regular basis.

We move forward and examine the turnstile.

Grey: "Nine, why were you reluctant to go through the turnstile?"

Nine: "It <em>new</em>."

Nil passes through the turnstile and starts looking at how to take it apart. With her tinker kit she starts taking off coverings, exposing mounts, and eventually removes the bit that keeps you from going back through. It's now a rotating door.

We move on to the mud room.

Snow leaps over to the first disk with no difficulty; it begins swinging slightly. Grey begins pounding in a piton to hang a rope down to the mud. Nil goes ahead and throws Water Walking on us.

Snow leaps to the next disk, and the next, and the next; she barely makes it to the fourth disk, but succeeds. The geysers are bubbling, but have not erupted. The fifth disk is harder, but she makes it. She makes it to six with style, then to seven. She leaps for eight... and starts to slip as she makes the leap... and gathers herself and manages to make it anyway. The southern geyser goes off, but she manages to keep her grip and absorbs a bit of the damage with Absorb Elements. She misses the final leap to the ledge, but sinks her claws into the stone below and scrambles up on onto the ledge. She immediately starts hanging the rope from the far ledge.

Grey starts down the rope, planning to use Water Walking to dart across the mud and climb back up the rope on the far side. Twenty feet above the mud, he stops; the heat is painful on his feet, legs, and butt -- and he's not even standing on the mud yet. The plan is not going to work. The mud's too hot; it will burn us too badly as we cross it.

Snow opens the door and we send the Arcane Eye through. There's a dwarf with a warhammer laying in front of him; it's Whelm.

We start trying to run a rope across - through the links of the chains, so it'll be overhead for people trying to cross. Grey moves in from one side, and Snow from the other. We repeat the thread-and-tie off just as the north geyser goes off, scalding Grey fairly badly. The geysers have settled again, now that they've... let off some steam. We move to the next set of platforms and thread through. Snow moves to the centermost disk, catching the rope that Grey throws in the process. She ties it off, and we now have a working safety line.

Thelmor and Nil follow, Nil with some difficulty and Thelmor fairly easily; Wave is singing inspirational sailing songs to Thelmor. Nil also takes some damage from the steam, though she's been watching the timing and manages to avoid being too badly damaged. Thelmor was trying to move quickly, and gets a bit singed as well. Perfect get across fairly quickly, if not easily, and also gets singed a bit. Nine is... not happy with fire, and there are a couple of times where he would have slipped if the rope hadn't been there. Fortunately, the geysers don't go off; our flesh golem is traumatized enough already.

We congratulate our flesh golem. Jhuni and Sunrise take a bit of damage getting across, but they make it.

Burnt, battered, and deeply annoyed, we made it to the other side. We huddle up in Leomund's Tiny Hut, heal and rest.

Whew.

DnD 5e Interlude: White Plume Mountain 6

We're looking at the trident and the beast in the burning bubble.

Character Recap:
Jhuni Blackfire (she/her) - enthusiastically pyromaniacal Sorcerer/Wizard
Thelmor Irdro (he/him) - Blood Hunter of the Lycan persuasion
Nil (they/them) - badass Cleric
Snow (she/her) - Swashbuckler and Gloomstalker Ranger
Sunrise (she/her) - Lore Bard - and Honey (she/her) her homunculus familiar
Perfect (he/him) - Battlemaster fighter
Grey (he/him) - Assassin/Illusionist

Sunrise has an interesting plan involving Dimension Door - basically, just bamph out to the trident, grab it, and bamph back. Likely the beast will show up the moment she appears out there, but that's the best of several plans that we've talked through. Sunrise takes a deep breath and teleports out to where the trident is.

She can feel the sweltering heat coming form the walls around her. (This would make amazing sauna.) The trident is sticking points-down in the sand. She steps forward, grabs the trident, and... it's stuck. Not like it's in sand, but like it's in rock. She starts to carefully pull it loose, and something shifts beneath her feet in the sand. She knees and tries to brush the sand away from the base of the trident. The surface beneath the sand is... rocky and bumpy, not smooth, and vaguelly familiar: it's some kind of chitin.

Yeah, there's something under the sand, and the trident is stuck in it.

As Sunrise is wondering what to do about this, she feels everything starts to shift again. She messages Nil: "New development. The trident is stuck in a giant crab. I think he's going to notice me at any minute."

After a brief consultation, Sunrise uses Dimension Door to return. She explains the situation. Options:
-Restore spells by resting, then try it again with someone strong. 

-We could try to sedate it; Nil has brought along an alchemy kit. 

-Grey could put together a poison and dope up the remains of the dead ogre from earlier, and we could just throw that in there. 

Crabs are scavengers, but the creatures here may be trained to prefer living flesh. Still, it might work...

How big is it? Well, big enough to stand on, obviously; Sunrise thinks probably 10x10, maybe as much as 20x20. (OOC: Large or Gargantuan.)

As we're discussing this, something glances off of Grey - like an attack that just barely missed.  Nil gets an impression of something behind him. Apparently, we're back in combat. Grey is not actually surprised by this; he spins in place and comes up with dagger. He stabs, and hits... something. We're suddenly now hearing a sort of whistling wind, but we don't see anything. Sunrise can't really perceive the thing, so she draws her rapier and says: "I don't think you're our enemy; why don't you come out and talk to us. She settles back into a defensive position. We hear the sound of wind without seeing it; Nil makes out some hint of Auran words, something like "found" and "target". Nil casts a spell and reads its thoughts: It feels like they're on to of a mountain; there's wind and air and clouds and it's almost dizzying; it's mulling over impressions of our party members, almost as if it's been given a report about us. "Master's targets. Must kill. Can only go home by killing Master's targets." As a knowledge cleric, Nil can try to influence the thing's thoughts; they attempt Suggestion and suggests that it go home to Master. It's convinced. 

They say, "This is a creature of air; it's been sent to kill us, but I am sending it home to its master." Grey looks impressed.

Jhuni considers this, then decides to hold her action. Thelmor can actually see a faint shimmer in the air, slightly displaced shadows; he knows where it is. He holds action against it attacking any of us.

It sweeps away down the corridor, leaving us behind.

Nil: "It was an invisible stalker; they're summoned monsters, which are given tasks. They don't generally don't have free will; they're basically either fetches or magical assassins. This one was after us specifically. Someone knows we're here and is moving against us directly."

We go back to the where we felled the ogre and grab us a chunk of Ogre meat; it's a bit rat-gnawed, but still there. We mix up a couple of batches of pretty strong poison and inject it into the meat. We use Mage Hand to pile the meat inside the door, and Thelmor throws one last piece of meat and actually managed to hit the trident with it. The trident begins to rise up out of the sand.

The crab is about 15' across; it's easily the biggest crab we've ever seen. This is the great-grandaddy of giant crabs. The trident is sticking out of its back, and on its right claw the crab has a band of shiny bronze or copper metal. Elven runes are etched into the metal: protection, bravery, loyalty... It may be a magical band, or it may just be crustacean friendship bracelet. We're not sure.

Beside being quite large, the crab seems kind of battered; the shell is cracked in various places. A lot of places. The crab should actually be dead. So... we may have wasted a bunch of poison. The eyes at the end of stalks are misty, not the shiny black we were expecting. Nil, using Arcane Eye, also spots another bracelet on the other claw to defend it against turning. Yes, definitely undead.

Nil and Grey are annoyed; Keraptis is probably laughing himself sick. Thelmor, looking at his axe. "Well, there are some things magic won't turn." Nil thinks we could probably take the thing, but it's going to be rough. Nil casts Shield of Faith on Thelmor, and Grey has conjured a semi-illusionary horse and turned it over to Thelmor. The plan is for Thelmor to move in close enough to teleport up onto the crab's back.

As we walk into the room, we notice that the crab is out and wandering around; it hasn't settle back into its burrow. We have a clear target, at least. And the trident isn't the only thing on its back; there's something else up there. Or someone; it's a blue-skinned elf, and he pulls out the trident easily. He points it at us, challenging, and the crab gets ready for an attack.

Grey, thinking to himself :So each of the weapons presumably has some sort of "owner" here in the dungeon.

Grey makes an illusion of himself, but thirty feet ahead of the group. The Elf on the back of the crab is not at all fooled by this.

Thelmor, on horseback, in Elvish: "Are you the one responsible for the condition of this crab?"

With an old-time accent, the elf answers: "This is not my doing, but by my enemy's."

Thelmor: "Then do you wage war against us?"

Elf: "It is not my wish, but I do."

Thelmor slows the horse. "What compels you to attack?"

Elf: "My master compels me to destroy you, one way or another."

Thelmor: "And if we destroy you?"

Elf: "I long for the dark sleep."

Thelmor: "Are you undead? Did this master raise you from the dead?"

Elf: "You speak truth."

Thelmor: "Well... for your sake and the sake of the Raven Queen, we do what we must."

Elf: "I will thank you in the afterlife. For now, I will do my best to kill you." He resumes a battle stance.

Thelmor, to the rest of us: "We must slay him! There is no other way!"

Thelmor advances on the illusionary horse.

Nil and Jhuni are sad that they don't get to seduce him. Thelmor dismounts and readies his axe, but doesn't immediately attack.

Jhuni attempts to persuade him: "Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to destroy me... in bed?"

He looks at her blankly, then looks back at Thelmor. So... Jhuni fireballs him, placing the explosion carefully behind him to avoid immolating Thelmor. Sunrise strolls forward, playing her lute and asking if he understands common. He looks directly at her, but doesn't answer. She plays a wandering melody: "I'm sorry for your situation. We don't want this any more than you do. Drop the trident, and we will make it quick."

He is not persuaded. "My apologies, but no. To battle!" He attacks Thelmor, who has gone werewolfy, and hits him. Thelmor was expecting this, and attacks and does some damage. The crab attacks the illusion, and the claw goes right through it; if they weren't clear on it being unreal before, they are now. Perfect calls encouragement to Thelmor, who gets to attack again. He smacks the elf with his axe again.

Nil throws up Spirit Guardians, and flying angry angels fill the air around us, attacking the elf and the crab. Nil looks troubled. Thelmor motions, and suddenly his axe has little sparks of lightning dancing around it. He smiles, and attacks, and does more damage. Jhuni drops another fireball, but the damage doesn't seem to be as much as it should be; the crab responds flawlessly to his guidance, allowing it to avoid the worst of the damage. Sunrise moves up, still playing a winsome melody. "We have a common enemy. Throw down your weapon, and let us take revenge on the one who did this to you." He shrugs off the magical suggestion, and guides the crab around to a new position; he attacks Thelmor, and hits. The crab attacks also, and slams him with a claw. Thelmor pries himself free before it can pick him up, and snarls at it.

Perfect moves in and attacks the crab, but the Elf intercepts the blow for the crab; we each see a sudden blur of overlapping visions; old memories, perhaps, from the elf. Perfect's second attack slices into the sea elf for quite a lot, and he steps back to pose. "Come now, let's see what two magical weapons can do together!" He seems to have the sea elf's attention.

Nil moves over and drops some healing on Thelmor while their conjured angels do more damage to our opponents. Thelmor wags his tail in appreciation. (OOC: we're not a hundred percent sure that a Lycan Blood Hunter has a tail when he transforms, but... this one does now.)

Grey, meanwhile, slides in and puts a dagger under the latch on the metal bracelet and pries; he bends it a bit, but fails to wrench the bracelet off. Grey uses his Cunning Action to get back out of range.

Thelmor attacks the crab, hoping to damage it while it's distracted; but the Sea Elf again intercepts. Still, Thelmor does a pretty good amount of damage. Jhuni drops another Fireball on the Sea Elf and his crab, doing more fire damage. Sunrise attempts another Suggestion, trying to get the elf to throw down the trident. The Sea Elf says, in Old High Elvish, "I cannot throw down this trident; it is a part of me as I am a part of it. I will hold back until you have defeated my mount." He sits cross-legged on the back of the crab.

The crab moves away, absorbing attacks from Thelmor and Perfect in the process. It moves quite a ways back and assumes a threatening posture. Perfect moves after it and attacks again, and hacks one of its legs most of the way off.

Nil observes the amulet on the sea elf's chest; it's another of the ones designed to make turning undead impossibly difficult. The spirit guardians are still active, but Nil honorably exempts the sea elf from their attacks. The crab, however, is still getting attacked. It takes damage from the angels, and then Nil drops some Necrotic damage on it as well. The elf twitches, but manages to remain still.

Thelmor teleports over beside the crab, putting himself uncomfortably close to the edge of the bubble, and attacks. The crab counter-attacks, but misses. Jhuni moves up and tries to zap the friendship bracelet with Scorching Ray. One ray, two rays, three rays... but the fourth one misses. It's enough: the band gives up and falls away from the claw.

The crab looks confused, and perhaps alarmed, but not especially damaged. And it still looks hostile. Jhuni blasts it with firebolt, and without its band that's enough to hurt it. Sunrise trades her lute for her rapier, and moves in to thrust at the crab. She catches a soft spot, and bubbles and foam begin to come from its mouth; it collapses, and she can feel the powerful necromantic magics disperse. She looks up at the sea elf: "Sorry, friend."

The Sea Elf stands, looks at us, and raises the trident. Then he charges at Sunrise and attacks, hitting twice with the trident, then follows up with a palm strike and then a kick. Perfect is annoyed by this, and steps in to attack; he hits once, and looks at Sunrise: "Just because everything has to be perfect doesn't mean you have to die perfectly." He gives her 6 temporary HP.

Nil re-tasks their guardians, who turn on the Sea Elf again. They also touch Sunrise, and restore some hit points. Nil: "Wait, are you an ancestor of Selanar Qivaris?"

He looks at Nil and nods. "I married a woman who gave me her last name, Quivaris."

Sunrise: "What is your name?"

Elf: "They would probably best know me as the wave-splitter."

Grey slides around everyone, comes into the spot where his illusion has been standing all this time, and stabs the Sea Elf - not for a huge amount of damage, but there's something to be said for suddenly replacing your illusion with yourself. The Wave-Splitter looks startled and displeased; he was not expecting this.

Thelmor follows up with a move-in-and-attack, damaging him further.

Jhuni attacks with Scorching Rays, hitting him twice and burning him more.

Sunrise attacks with her rapier, crits, and does a respectable amount of damage.

Wavesplitter attacks Thelmor, and attempts some extra effect which fails. He manages to slide out from the middle of us, and moves away down the field to put some distance between us and him. Perfect switches to longbow and positions himself beside Grey; he looses two arrows, missing with the first. The Sea Elf catches the second and throws it back at him in a full-on Monk move.

Sunrise: "Now that's just dirty pool." She uses her bardic ability to disrupt the attack, but it still hits and Perfect actually takes damage. Finally.

Nil moves up to bring her angels into range again; she then tags the Elf with Toll The Dead. Grey moves up a little and tries Color Spray, but Wavesplitter is still hale enough to be unaffected. Thelmor: "Why do you run away from that which you seek?" He moves in, brands him with a spell, and attacks.

Elf: "You dare brand me!?"

Thelmor: "The Raven Queen calls. You dare run away from your fate?"

Jhuni moves up and throws another Scorching Ray and then uses sorcery points to add a fireball. Sunrise moves up and casts Detect Thoughts, asking: "Would you like to be remembered? What is your story?"

Quick flashes of memory: a war between the tribes of the land and the peoples of the sea, growing from raids to battles; then a woman enters the picture, a woman who fights fiercely but spares his life. She smiles. She is trying to kill him; she is sparring with him in secret. There's a wedding, that carries with it a peace treaty. He is passing Wave to their child. He is old and dying now, surrounded by their family as he prepares to let go. 

Sunrise is already composing a ballad in her head.

The elf attacks Thelmor: "Do not hold back anymore!" He does a big chunk of damage, sticks the trident in the sand, and tries unarmed attacks; one hits, doing a bit more. Thelmor grins as the brand zaps him. Perfect: "Are you really going to take that?" He gives Thelmor an extra move, and Thelmor slams his axe into Wavesplitter and cuts the elf down. The trident falls, and the elf looks stunned. Then, as he starts to fall, he smiles. As he hits the sand, the body comes apart into small balls of light that float up and away. The necromantic magics dissipate around them as the lights form back together above the trident. His skin is now a vibrant turquoise and he smiles; a tiny ghost-crab circles his shoulder. He smiles at all of us, bows, and says: "Thank you so much for freeing me. You must end the wizard's curse, and defeat him once and for all."

Thelmor lets loose with a mournful howl before he transforms back. We stop for another long rest.

(The band on the crab's claw was a protection spell that prevented charm, fear, and paralysis.) We'll pick up next time with treasure and other follow-up; we're out of time now.