Session 15

Get Your Towels Ready, It's About to Go Down
24 Flamerule(morning) - 25 Flamerule(morning)

The party awakens in the morning at Pickshine Mine and breakfasts with the miners. The svirfneblin look at them with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion, but nobody bothers them. Dasco Pickshine tells the group that his son, Belwar Pickshine, will be leading the caravan to Blingdenstone that they are planning to accompany.

While the caravan gets ready and the Young Adventurers introduce themselves to Belwar (a gruff, plainspoken man) they are approached by a deep gnome from one of the side tunnels. This gnome--tall (for his people), dashing, black hair rather than the common white, carrying a vicious looking short spear--introduces himself as Freekend Orefoot. Freekend is traveling out of the Stoneheart Quarry towards Blingdenstone and is also looking to join the caravan. Although there is some initial friction with Kaia (because he was once kept as a slave by Zhentarim humans and Kaia is a bit of a dick), he seems like a decent enough fellow. (DM note: we had two guest players, Grandy playing Freekend and Shelley playing Fargus Rumblefoot.)

Enroute to Blingdenstone there is some trouble when one of the miners, a woman named Yeshed, tries to pickpocket Fargus. She is caught and accused. Once Belwar is convinced that Yeshed did in fact try to steal he becomes enraged, insisting she be forced to leave the caravan immediately, potentially a death sentence in the dangerous Underdark. Sebastian and Freekend are both very opposed to this and manage to talk Belwar down. This sort of petty theft amongst his people is very unusual and troubling to Freekend, though the Young Adventurers seem to take it in stride.

Upon arriving at Blingdenstone they find Glabbagool waiting outside the doors. He greets the party happily, and tells them that the guard told him if he didn’t move he wouldn’t die. Glabbagool sounds thrilled about this. The guard captain greets Freekend and Belwar’s crew, welcoming them to the city, then questions the Young Adventurers. Belwar vouches for them and the guard says he will escort them to the leaders of the community, Dorbo and Senni Diggermattock. The party tries to convince him to let Glabbagool in but the guard says they have enough problems with oozes getting in somehow. Glabbagool happily says that he will look for how the other oozes are getting in and wanders off.

The group enters through the main gates and follows the guard as he leads them through the outer defences and inner city. Unlike Gracklstugh, which was a city built in one huge cavern, Blingdenstone is a series of smaller caverns and connecting tunnels. Svirfneblin inhabitants are going about their lives and while the party attracts the odd suspicious look, there doesn’t seem to be any threat here. Eventually the party is brought before the Diggermattocks, where Kaia explains the situation--Demon Lords are loose and the group wants to return to the surface. Unfortunately, Dorbo Diggermattock tells them that he can’t help them, even if he wanted to. Blingdenstone has not yet been fully recovered; oozes occasionally attack from somewhere, the Goldwhisker clan holds the southwest, and the Rockblight can’t be settled until Ogremoch’s Bane has been dealt with. In the meantime they have no men to spare and will not give maps to outsiders. The party is welcome to stay, however, and he tells them that the Foaming Mug has suitable accommodations.

Freekend mentions at this time that he came to Blingdenstone to speak with Gurnik Tapfinger, a priest of the Stoneheart Enclave, who has a mission in the Rockblight for him. It may be that the Young Adventurers can be of help. The party agrees to go speak with Tapfinger, and does not have any follow up questions for Dorbo or Senni (who exactly are the Goldwhisker clan? The Young Adventurers don’t know.)

Freekend takes them by the Speaking Stones, a holy place dedicated to Callarduran Smoothhands, where they find and talk to Gurnik, an elderly gnome. Gurnik tells them they still have no idea how to deal with Ogremoch’s Bane, an elemental spirit somewhere in the Rockblight who causes earth elementals to go mad. He has, however, found a way to reclaim the Steadfast Stone, another temple located in what is now the Rockblight. If the party can place a spell gem in the menhir at the temple and defend it until the magic takes hold it should cleanse the temple. Gurnik gives the spell gem, a ruby, to Freekend. Gurnik also tells the group that pech have been spotted in the Rockblight and encourages them to speak to any pech they see.

Freekend then shows the group to the Trader’s Grotto, a large cavern filled with towering mushrooms turned to stone. Various merchants have stalls and stores amongst the fungi. The party restocks and resupplies and Ralkor finds an actual magic shop--Fenphina’s Fine Fortunes. He buys a bunch of wizard shit (ink, paper, spell scrolls) and Fenphina mentions that she has a handful of magic items available for sale, including a pair of slippers of spider climbing currently stuck to the ceiling. A couple of attempts are made to get them down but after Freekend falls 20’ onto his head they give up on the slippers. The Young Adventurers then discover that Fenphina has a folding boat and instantly decide they need a folding boat more than anything in the world. They unload the last of their stockpile of silver, along with a bunch of gold, and get their boat while the DM flips through the manual to see if there is any use whatsoever for a folding boat in the rest of this campaign.

While heading to the inn Kaia spots a glowing, translucent deep gnome moving down a side alley. Kaia stealthily follows as does Fargus and Freekend. They see the gnome--clearly a ghost--enter an abandoned residence. Freekend explains that there are many ghosts in the city, dating back to the slaughter when the drow conquered Blingdenstone. They are generally harmless. Kaia follows anyway but the ghost ignores her when she tries to talk with it, then fades away after weeping for a bit.

At the inn they are happily greeted by Tappy Foamstrap, the innkeeper, who seems excited to see “big people.” She says she hadn’t seen any big people in years, now twice in one month, explaining that an orc had arrived a short time ago. The party rents rooms from her and has a meal in the common room. They see the orc Tappy mentioned, who actually appears to be a half-orc (and not Ront, as they fully expected for some reason). Kaia briefly speaks with the half-orc, who says his name is Xundus. He looks old and worn-down but still has a powerful build. Xundus tells her that he was a slave in Menzoberranzan for years and escaped into the Underdark. He would have died, as he lacks survival skills, but was rescued by a gnomish patrol and brought to Blingdenstone. Kaia invites him to sit with the party but he politely declines. The party shortly turns in for the night.

In the morning the group, minus Eldeth and Jimjar, sets out for the Rockblight. At the entrance to the Rockblight they speak with Sark Axebarrel, in charge of the guards stationed there. He informs the party that there is a medusa somewhere in the Rockblight in addition to the mad elementals and Ogremoch’s Bane, and offers a reward for information about her whereabouts or a larger reward if they can kill her.

Once inside the Rockblight the party makes their way to a large cavern that appears to have once been a residential area. Distant sounds of fighting are heard but never seem to get closer. Suddenly a deep gnome ghost rushes the party screaming “they’re coming!” before unleashing a horrifying visage, causing a bunch of the party to be feared and Kaia to be aged 40 years in the blink of an eye (hilariously bad rolls all around). The ghost is swiftly killed (re-killed?) but Kaia remains an old lady and is not super happy about it.

Slightly further in they are attacked by what initially appeared to be three drow statues. Shortly after engaging with the statues an earth elemental erupts from a nearby pool of water and attacks as well. Freekend and Fargus do some impressive damage as the party takes down these enemies in fairly short order.

Unfortunately we have to leave off there, with Old Lady Kaia and her boys deep in enemy territory. See you next time, when without Grandy and Shelley I’ll probably forget to have their characters do anything.