Adventure Notes – The Adventurers 20

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Connected Adventures: Adventure 14, Adventure 15, Adventure 16, Adventure 17, Adventure 18 and Adventure 19.

  • With the Drow Captain dragged to the side and restrained, Adrian begins digging a hole with his shield
  • Korra tells the others that she suspects that the Drow may send others if this commander and his squadron do not return, so she goes to begin scouting around the area, disappearing into the shadows. (Korra wasn’t able to make tonight’s session so this way my way of easily taking her out of the party for tonight’s session since she is a Rogue)
  • Sephrenia takes to healing herself and everyone else in the party (Prayer of Healing)
  • Searching the Commander they find a parchment written in a language they’re not able to immediately decipher. Sephrenia decides to try to read it, because it may have some elements of Elvish.
  • Morsus even uses Ritual Magic to use Comprehend Languages, however, because of the runes and language that’d never been seen before, even his magic seems to fail in helping decipher the parchment further.
  • Adrian throws the prisoner into the ground and buries him to his head. He proceeds to slap him and question him, but the Commander does not respond, only spitting at the ground, so Adrian looks for nose hairs (Natural 20!) and grabs a finger full and yanks (8 damage! Maximum damage!) to which the Drow commander, against his will, lets out a small tear from the sharp pain!
  • Morsus begins speaking to him in Dwarvish and the Drow responds, spitting the words in disgust, calling him a “Son of a Mushroom!” (a term used as a slang, as the Drow think the Myconoid are brainless)
  • Morsus casts Zone of Truth which the Commander successfully succeeds against
  • As they look and begin to decipher the text based off the letters they know; they see the final line about “find the shaper”… “kill her”… and the party realizes that the Doppleganger they killed is undoubtedly the Shaper the Drow are looking for and that perhaps killing her may have been a mistake, as they may have been able to potentially acquire information from her in exchange, for perhaps, safe passage out of the Shadow Vale.
  • Morsus continues to talk to him in Dwarvish, and Morsus explains that he’s not a Mountain Dwarf, to which the Drow commander explains that means that Morsus wouldn’t even be good for mining then
  • Morsus pries further saying that the Drow are responsible for the poison; to which the Commander reports that the Illithid are
  • Morsus asks Pren about this and Pren explains that Drow have been spotted
  • So when Morsus brings that to the Commander, the Commander simply replies that the Illithid are masters of the mind
  • Morsus mentions how he’s seen the Drow attacking Dwarves
  • The Commander explains there are those – on both sides that refuse to let go of a war that’s lasted over 1,000 years
  • Morsus asks why they’ve been attacked and the Commander explains that they’re outsiders and that their kind is not welcomed down in the Shadow Vale
  • Sephrenia tells Morsus to ask why they’re stealing things from the Plane of Fire and the Plane of Air
  • And the Commander looks surprised that the party asks him that and refuses to acknowledge any answer other than, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
  • Morsus asks about the Adamantine that’s mentioned in the parchment and the idea of someone ascending but the Commander refuses to say much other than “The time will come and she will rise, and the world will be ours.”
  • Realizing they’re dealing with a fanatic and won’t get information from him, Morsus breaks his neck
  • It’s just after that, the party spots three more Drow archers, and another Captain – this time dragging Dwarves by a chain. The Dwarves look worse for the wear, but freshly captured. The party realizes these must be the Dwarves that the parchment mentions about being sent down as Sephrenia continues to decipher the parchment.
  • The party knows they must rescue the dwarves and stop them from being taken to the mine
  • The Drow also take notice to the party and combat starts
  • The Drow fire on the party, one hitting Ragnaroc
  • The Captain makes no offer to attack, pulling the slaves along while the archers provide cover
  • Adrian quickly rushes up to the commander, doubling his movement to get the Captain to stop him from fleeing
  • Sephrenia rushes up and casts Bane – the archers both fail their savings throw, however the Captain shakes off the effect
  • Once the archers spot Sephrenia, she becomes their primary target (again, due to their hatred of Surface Elves of any and every kind)
  • Two of them manage to get hits on her, before dropping their bows and rushing to her with their swords drawn
  • The Captain releases the chain of dwarven slaves but they don’t flee due to the beatings they’ve taken, the Captain draws his large, two handed sword
  • Don Kannin fires at the middle archer before they reach Sephrenia, and hits – then using Horde Breaker hits another one, but then fires and misses the third one
  • Ragnaroc attempts to Eldrich Blast the Captain, but misses (just barely)
    • Note: At this point Ragnaroc had to leave the session, so he essentially became an NPC with no spell slots
  • Pren Flintrock tries to stab one of the Drow archers near Sephrenia with the dagger the party had given him, but misses
  • Don Kannin fires another shot and misses accidentally striking Sephrenia (Natural 1!)
  • Another round goes by, and another shot from Don strikes the bleeding Sephrenia again (another Natural 1 but not back to back, just summarized as such)
  • Morsus does Toll The Dead on one of the Drow and manages to kill it/One Archer/Swordsman dead
  • Pren attempts to attack one of the Drow and misses again, accusing the dagger from not being Dwarven made!
  • Another round goes by again, and Pren misses again, this time throwing the dagger out into the swamp after missing!
  • Sephrenia is forced to heal herself again
  • Despite the Bane spell, the two remaining on her and hit her a few more times
  • Adrian notices that the eyes on the hilt of the spider seems to glow red, and he hits Adrian for hard damage, but also manages to hit himself on his second attack (Natural 1 on the second attack!)
  • Seeing Sephrenia being wounded, Adrian casts Sanctuary on Sephrenia
  • One of the archers fails to save against the Sanctuary and decides to go after Morsus instead and manages to strike him
  • Adrian then manages to hit the Captain while the Captain recovers from his critical fail
  • Pren Flintrock without a dagger decides to bite the Drow (Natural 20!) and bites down (Maximum Damage!) and manages to topple the swordsman/archer to the ground who is now screaming in pain, trying to beat the dwarf off his leg
  • This allows Sephrenia a moment to heal herself again
  • Sephrenia also uses Bless to help Adrian, Morsus and Don Kannin
  • The party can see that Adrian is not doing well and bleeding profusely
  • Through blood and sweat he continues to try and attack the Captain who seems to be thriving on the combat, but he hits thanks to Morsus’ bat fluttering around helping keep the Captain distracted, allowing Adrian to hit and do maximum damage
  • The Captain however, deals two big strikes against Adrian, knocking him below 0 health
  • The Captain now turns to Sephrenia and smiles since he knows Sanctuary is no longer in place since Adrian has fallen
    • Adrian makes fails his Death Save
  • Morsus casts Toll the Dead on one of the remaining Drow archers/swordsman
  • Pren manages to kill the second Drow Archer/Swordsman
  • The party manages to kill the last Drow Archer/Swordsman
  • Sephrenia, knowing that the Captain is going to be rushing towards her, she moves to him, casting Spare the Dying on Adrian which stabilizes him (so he no longer has to do Death Saves)
  • The Captain hits Sephrenia (Natural 20!) and nearly takes down Sephrenia with the amount of damage he deals
  • Don fires at the Captain and hits (Natural 20!) and knocks the Captain to his knee for a moment before he stands up
  • Sephrenia quickly pulls her shield out and begins using the Dodge action in hopes of preventing being hit
  • This action allows her to avoid a Natural 20, but the disadvantage hit still manages to hit her, taking her down next
  • Don Kannin manages to hit the Captain again
  • The Captain goes for Morsus, who is using a Dodge
  • Pren sees the Captain and knows he would undoubtedly die if he goes after the Captain so he brushes himself off and says, “Looks like you all got it from here!”
    • Sephrenia makes 1 successful Death Save on her turn
  • Despite dodging, The Captain manages to hit Morsus also
    • Morsus does notice that the blade is jet black, and the blood seems to get absorbed into the blade
  • Don fires another arrow and lands the critical hit that finally takes down the Captain
  • Adrian and Sephrenia are down, Morsus is down to 3 hit points
    • Sephrenia rolls a 1 on her Death Save, giving her two fails
  • Morsus quickly rushes to stabilize her
  • Both Don and Morsus do a Perception check and spot Nor’Orn riding on Glider, leaving his cave
  • Morsus, Don and Ragnaroc drag the bodies back to Nor’Orn’s cave
  • Morsus attempts to pick up the two handed sword the Captain was using
  • Doing so (failing Wisdom Savings Throw) – voices speak into his mind in a language he doesn’t understand as he witnesses a woman bursting through the ground, her white hair spreading around, her eyes turn and she screams, and yanks Morsus back to reality and he drops the sword
  • Don Kannin tries to pick up the sword, despite Morsus’ warning (also failing the Wisdom Savings Throw) and sees spiders climbing everywhere, then a woman emerging from the stone, looking beautiful at first, her white hair spreading around – threads of it turning to webs, where spiders run up and down her hair, before she turns and yells, yanking Don Kannin back to reality where he drops the sword
  • They search the Drow aside from the two handed sword and find the traditional Drow daggers and 60 gold (and the six dwarven slaves still in chains)
  • The party frees the Dwarves and brings them into Nor’Orn cave and takes a long rest there, knowing that the cave is a safe haven, even avoided by the Drow
  • When Adrian wakes up he’s told about the unusual great sword and goes out to touch it (successful Wisdom save!)
    • His vision is similar; he sees spiders everywhere;
  • Followed by a beautiful, female, Drow Priestess whose form slowly changes
  • Her entire lower torso takes on the form of a giant black widow and she bursts through the Earth
  • As she does, her white strands of hair spread out like thin webs – and on those webs – unlike the others, Adrian’s vision is much more clear – it’s not spiders running on the web – but he bares witness to male Drow whose lower bodies are also changed into spider-like torsos, and it’s those Drow that run along the strands of her hair
  • Like the others, the converted woman turns and faces Adrian in the vision and screams, but Adrian is able to keep his hold on the sword, though his hand is violently shaking as if his body is fighting against him, attempting to throw the sword away from him; and the unusual sound of the voices he can’t understand continues to pour through his mind
  • Sephrenia mentions that Elves had used Moonstones as a way of communicating to one another through magical means and that perhaps the blade uses something similar that allows the Priestess to communicate to her highest officials, as if the blade were a strand in a very giant web
  • The party waits for Nor’Orn to arrive and show him the blade – and it shakes Nor’Orn who has both a pleasant, and yet very nervous laugh, calling it “The Blade of Nak’ar.”
  • He explains that Nak’ar is a high ranking Drow in the Priestess’ ranks and if the party has killed him, she will know and send many Drow out to find out who killed him to exact their revenge
  • Morsus mentions that does this have to do with the “Spider Lady”
  • Nor’Orn then says, “Oh! I wonder… they’re building a big statue out of Adamantine. Big Spider-Lady. Looks like Drow. Looks like spider! It’s this big!” extending his hands as far as he can to try to indicate how big it is.
  • The party now realizes they have several choices; as well as Pren, and six other Dwarven slaves they’ve tried to rescue…
  • Between Sephrenia & Adrian, the parchment from the Captain is deciphered (I am so stoked you guys went all the way with that and took the time to do it! I just put it in there as something you could decipher if you wanted, did not expect it would be!) So that said, everyone – even if you were not present Gains Inspiration! This is beginning next session – but remember, Inspiration (in my campaign) goes away after a Short or Long rest, so you will want to use it before that!
  • Here’s the decoded document in its entirety: