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• Aros – Lightfoot Halfling, Rogue
  • Rubber Ducky of Inspiration
• Galiena Erenaeth – Half Elf, Celestial Warlock / Druid
  • Dearbhán – NPC, Fairy Dragon (Galiena’s pet)
  • NPCs:
    • Waesyn Oakenpath – Human (Fighter)
    • Balgun Sternrest – Elf (Ranger)
    • Darko Wintersage – NPC, Undead Wizard (Flame Skull)

• Aros, Galiena, leap into the bushes – and Galiena yanks the young boy, Grotte Stonespring, that they’d just rescued – as well as Belgun and Waesyn
• They watched as four Duergar approach, two of them wearing skull masks, two others, slightly bulkier, holding a chain – each with three slaves.
• Aros whispers, “We should free the slaves.”
• Waesyn nods his head in approval, trying to remember that they’re trying to be quiet
• Balgun slowly draws an arrow from his quiver and knocks his bow, ready to fire
• The party gets the drop on the Duergar – and Adrian manages to plunge his dagger deep int one of them; while Galiena drops Faerie Fire – only the one whom Adrian had stabbed managed to roll out of the way of the Faerie Fire (DM Note – We flavored it since he rolled a Natural 20, that he was on the ground rolling, holding the wound in his neck and just happened to roll out of where Faerie Fire was dropped)

• During the combat, the Duergar reveal they have an ability they were not aware of – and it follows up with a Critical Strike (Natural 20!)

• As the battle rages, things seem to go against the Duergar who are, perhaps, not used to anyone rebelling and fighting against them as they Critical Fail and the others Critical Hit…

• As the battle rages, Aros finds himself repeatedly getting caught on a branch in the bushes he’s trying to hide in (DM Note – This was flavored due to low stealth rolls)

• The battle concludes with Galiena dropping a Witch Bolt on the last remaining slaver. Waesyn quickly rushes over to break the chains in which the slaves are bound (both to be useful as well as to show off in front of Galiena about his incredible strength).
• Surprisingly, one of the human, male slaves, coughs and clears his throat, “Balgun?”
• Balgun turns, startled by the familiar voice. “Renoll?” He turns and sees one of the humans who had been on the ship with him. (DM Note – Last session it was added in the notes that Balgun was out searching for others who’d fled the Stirge Cave – see Session 50 for more details).
• Renoll explains how after fleeing from the stirges, he and several others met in the forest just outside the cave and returned back to the cave for shelter from the storm, where they’d been captured and enslaved by the Duergar. They explain they’re not sure what’s going on, but it feels like they’ve been slaves for a very, very, very long time (though they don’t know how long since they’ve been in the cave and had no way to track day and night) – and yet, no one has aged.
• Renoll introduces the other five, human, slaves: Talanor, Everith, Grenthor, Crestmoore, and Sarauan.
• Renoll explains that there are other survivors of the shipwreck who are somewhere in these slave mines, as they’d been captured as well
• Balgun looks to the party then looks at Renoll and whispers, “I believe I know where they might be. When we came through, we went through a slave mine area.”
• Galiena says, “Don’t take this the wrong way… I do want to help these people, but we have Grotte Stonespring,” she places her hand on the young boy’s shoulder, “and we need to get him back home to his parents.”
• Balgun heaves a deep sigh. “I know, I know. I know you’re right.” He turns to Renoll and asks, “How are the others?”
• Renoll looks grim. “These dwarves are cruel and worthless and work us to the bone, putting us in danger. But they do try to keep us alive, because we’re already their slaves. But they make jests about how we can be replaced any time… and I believe them. More and more slaves are brought in every week. I suspect other ships are being drawn to this island and crashing into its shores, just as we did. And those that shipwreck around here, these dwarves go out and capture.”
• Aros adds that they are not all that well off and the Duergar are bound to come back down this path sooner or later, looking for the slaves – and that they’d best get to the lake and escape
• Renoll almost laughs. “The lake? You realize that’s a dead end don’t you?”
• Aros’ eyes open up wide. “What?”
• Renoll laughs, “Yes. There’s a giant underwater lake at the end of this road.”
• Aros looks at Galiena, “We should go still. If you have a connection to that animal…”
• “The Sea Lion?” Galiena asks
• Renoll explains, “Well, as far as I know it’s a dead end. The Duergar have these long, 300′ or so tubes – six of them, because they only ever take six slaves to the lake at one time – that are tied at the top of the cave – the other end is a glass sphere we put over our heads – which is connected to the tube, and allows us to breathe underwater while we mine for these gems these damn dwarves want. We do, sometimes, get attacked in the water – but we can never see by what because there’s no light in the cave, and in the depths we dive, the water is that much darker. We’ve had to cut ourselves free of other slaves we’re tied to in the water, when we feel them being pulled away in the dark…”
• “If the beasts come to shore, the Duergar will try to kill them,” Renoll adds. “Green, scaly humanoid creatures… vicious.” He adds, “As a matter of fact, that one,” he points to the one Aros had first attacked, “has the bag of gems we harvested tonight – strange, they’re gone.” (DM Note – Aros did Sleight of Hand to successfully get the bag) Renoll looks around, “It must have fallen during the combat. We should look for it. It’s a bag with about 3,000 gold worth in gems!”
• “There’s no time,” Aros coughs and looks at Galiena. “As we were saying – the Duergar are going to be looking for all of you and the Duergar slavers we just killed. If this underwater lake is really a dead end – we need to get down there as soon as possible and see what we can do – because we can’t go back through the village – not with the six of you. So that underwater lake needs to be our exit.”
• Renoll and the others agree
• Galiena hears the telepathic voice of Dearbhán, who tells her, “The little one took the bag! I wanted to see what was inside! Gems! Shiny!” Galiena realizes that Dearbhán has remained invisible – and due to his weight – has not been flying but keeping near the ground – where he would have been level to the bag. (See Session 47 for reasons about Dearbhán‘s weight issues and why he’s overweight!)
• Aros points out that they slaves should arm themselves with whatever weapons they can take from the Duergar, and grabbing some of the armor and clothing that they can from the Duergar slavers
• DM Note – As the party has Waesyn dispose of the bodies off the path – I begin having the party roll a percentile dice – but I don’t tell them why. First one, I tell Galiena to roll below a 90%…

• I explain Waesyn throws the first body. He picks up the second body and I ask Aros to roll a percentile dice lower than 80.

• Waesyn then picks up the third body, I ask Galiena to roll under a 75%

• Waesyn picks up the fourth and final body, I ask Aros to roll below a 60%…

• As Waesyn throws the fourth body into the shrubbery, it strikes a rather, larger, particular, mushroom…

• The fourth body collides into a Shrieker, which begins emitting it’s loud, traditional high pitch sound. The party begins to make their way into the thicket to try and destroy the shrieker, but they hear the Duergar – from the hamlet – further behind them begin shouting and bells begin ringing… Shriekers, are often used as alarms, and the party assumes that the Duergar may have scattered them around, in case the “lake people” come and try to steal some of their slaves, trying to hide in the shrubbery…
• Aros shouts, “Run!”
• Galiena sweeps Grotte Stonespring into her arms (Strength Check and rolled a 20!) and the slaves, though weakened, begin to follow – running towards the undersea lake
• Aros with his halfling legs is lagging behind until Waesyn picks up him by the scruff of his neck and complains, “Run faster, get longer legs, little man!”
• As the party races ahead, behind them they can hear screams and shouts, and know that the Duergar have discovered the bodies of their companions – but they notice that their shouts grow further and further behind, and notice that the Duergar are not giving chase
• After going for about four hours, moving through the caverns, and taking rests here and there, they finally arrive to the underwater lake

• It’s there, they see the tubing mounted on the wall that runs about 100 to 300 feet, each tube going it’s own depth, and at the end is a glass dome which the tube is connected to (a hole allowing air to pass into the dome) and the dome containing a large enough hole at the bottom for someone to put it on their head and use it to get oxygen while being underwater. Balgun admits that it’s incredible ingenious of them to have designed such a thing
• The party takes a short rest, keeping guard rotation to make sure the Duergar don’t make their way down; the party is able to get their short rest and comes to an idea that that Galiena could Water Walk out to the middle of the lake then use Polymorph to turn herself into a massive Sperm Whale and swim at the depths of the lake to see if she’s able to see if she can find an underwater passage that would allow them to escape through. When asked how the slaves would escape, the plan is that they can all climb into Galiena’s mouth in her Sperm Whale form.
• Korra uses Water Walk goes 100 feet out to what appears to be the deepest part of the lake and then turns herself into Sperm Whale using Polymorph. The change causes a massive wave to wash over and hit Aros and the slaves (failed Dex Checks for some very minor damage).
• In her Sperm Whale form she can tell the water is a mixture – there is fresh water (from a river near by, but the depth of which this cave runs, has ocean water pouring into it from somewhere… the mountain side is relatively close to the edge of the island…)
• Using her echo location ability, she emits a loud sound under the water and hears it reverberate off the walls below the lake – but there is a section that takes longer to bounce back and has a different sound – more hollow – as if there is an opening. She swims in that direction and finds a hole in the underwater lake where she can feel the surge of pressure every so often coming through the hole. She begins ramming her sperm whale head into the hole causing it to collapse and grow bigger – and finally when it’s big enough she turns her massive form around and begins to swim towards the shore – but for fear of beaching herself, she remains out in the water, forcing everyone to swim to her.
• Waesyn grabbs Aros and Balgun and insists they go last in case the Duergar come; and the two agree, allowing the six slaves to begin swimming towards Galiena’s sperm whale form as she opens her mouth
• Just as this begins to happen, creatures emerge from the hole in which Galiena had created, and it’s immediately easy to tell – it’s Sahaugin riding on the backs of sharks – however, rather than go for the slaves, they see a large, trapped Sperm Whale that they believe will feed them for months and begin to attack Galiena – and it’s not long before one cuts her and the rest begin to frenzy (gaining advantage to hit her massive form), and the sharks use pack tactics to gain advantage on their attacks! Thankfully, Aros, Balgun, and Waesyn all have ranged weapons – and Balgun is quick to show Waesyn, he may not have Waesyn’s strength but he can defend himself and help save Galiena with the best of them, landing a critical hit on one of the Sahuagin!

• As the fighting continues, more and more Sahuagin and sharks begin to come through the hole, drawn by the loud sounds
• Two of the slaves manage to make it and swim into Galiena’s gaping maw; the other four struggle; more and more Sahauagin pour through the hole, another three slave makes it while the last one screams that he’s suffering from cramps (I had Galiena roll a d6, and she first rolled a “2” which mean 2 of the 6 slaves made it to her… as a few rounds of combat went, since there were 4 left, I had her roll a d4, she rolled a 3, leaving one out there… so I flavored it that he was suffering from cramps)
• As things begin to grow desperate, a new form bursts through the water and lands on top of Galiena’s massive sperm whale form and with its mighty claws, begins to rend through the Sahauagin who have mounted her and had been thrusting their spears into her; and in the water begin that figure, several small, quick, dashing figures
• Aros sees it and strains to look, and his mouth nearly drops as he recognizes the creature on Galiena’s back attacking the Sahuagin… it’s the Sea Lion! (See Session 42 for more!)

• And with it, come dozens and dozens of dolphins who begin ramming their rostrum (snouts) into the gills of the sharks, causing the sharks to “choke” beneath the water and forcing them to retreat; the Sahuagin seeing the Sea Lion and their sharks retreating are also forced to retreat; and Aros, Waesyn, and Balgun leap into the water taking the young boy whom they’d come for – Grotte Stonespring – along with them and helping the final slave make it into Galiena’s maw, where she closes it and goes beneath the water and swims through the hole she created, surfacing out near a river bed, where she spits everyone out and returns to her normal self, rolling onto the shore along with everyone else.

Definitely to be continued…