Session 18

22 Short Films about Blingdenstone
26 Flamerule(morning) - 29 Flamerule(afternoon)

The Young Adventurers, hiding in Kaia’s rope trick, watch as slimes and oozes pour into the cavern they are in. They briefly attempt to bargain with the self-proclaimed “Pudding King” but decide to decline his offer to give themselves up to his judgement. They take a full short rest and then send Nespip out to negotiate. It turns out that Glabbagool (now, apparently, a duke) has been telling the Pudding King about the team and how they treated him well. The Pudding King has decided that because of this he will give the Young Adventurers a second chance. He tells them that he will spare them if they escort his chosen emissary (Duke Glabbagool) to give his demands to the Diggermatocks. The group readily agrees, seeing the large number of oozes now surrounding them.

Glabbagool leads them out by way of the “House Center,” a huge spherical building nearby. The route is teaming with oozes, perhaps hundreds, it is hard to tell. They exit near where they came in and see two Goldwhisker wererats running down a  tunnel they had not explored. Following the wererats the party finds the Goldwhisker warrens, along with dozens of Goldwhisker clan members pointing crossbows at them. Chipgrin Goldwhisker, the leader of the clan, is aware of the threat posed by the oozes and will meet with the Diggermatocks to discuss the problem if he is promised safe passage. The party is allowed to leave without conflict.

The party returns to the Diggermattocks along with Glabbagool (after some dispute at the gates). Kaia explains what all happened and the Diggermatocks decide to call a council the following morning including the party, all city leaders, Chipgrin, and “Duke” Glabbagool. The party spends the rest of the afternoon showing Glabbagool around the city and buying him a “hat” (actually a steel helm).

Upon returning to the Foaming Mug for dinner they are approached by a deep gnome miner, who says his name is Drethis and he can lead the party to a route to the surface. Drethis is unwilling to explain much beyond saying that he follows a master named Lorcan and it is in their interest to see the party returned to the surface. He says that there is a castle on an island in the darklake with a portal underneath it and only he can open the portal. The party tries to get more information out of him with little success but ultimately decides sure, why the fuck not we can trust this guy. They plan to leave in the morning.

The next morning the group meet in the common room. Kaia, Sebastian, and especially Drethis are all for leaving immediately without telling anyone while Ralkor thinks they should talk to the Diggermatocks and let them know. Drethis urges them to just leave, saying that the Diggermatocks need the Young Adventurers for their fighting ability and will try to convince the party to stay. Nonetheless the party agrees to tell Dorbo and Senni Diggermatoock they are leaving.

The Diggermatocks immediately convince the party to stay, showing that Drethis knows what he is talking about. They tell the party that they will send Freekend to guide them to the surface as soon as the Pudding King is dead if they’ll just help them see it through. They also tell the party that there is no svirfneblin named Drethis that they are aware of, so who even was the guy they were talking to? The party agrees to stay and tries to find Drethis so the Diggermatocks can confront him, but Drethis is nowhere to be found.

The party attends the council, along with Dorbo and Senni Diggermattock, Sark Axebarrel, Burrow Warden Jadger (a ghost), Freekend, Nomi Pathshutter, Gurnik Tapfinger, Kazook Pickshine, Chipgrin Goldwhisker, and Duke Glabbagool. After Glabbagool gives the Pudding King’s demands (“Abandon Blingdenstone and live a little longer, but he’ll eventually kill you no matter where you go”) and leaves the room the party describes what they saw. Jadger asks how many slimes there were and the party guesses hundreds which Chipgrin confirms saying that the wererats have spied on the oozes in the House Center. Sark confirms that Ogremoch’s Bane seems to be gone from the Rockblight so the gnomes can use elementals in the coming fight. Gurnik suggests that their elementals would be stronger if they could recover Entemoch’s Boon and Kaia immediately decides that the Young Adventurers should run off to find the Boon, meeting adjourned. Senni Diggermattock tells her to chill and continues the meeting. Jadger would like acid-resistant weapons and armor but there doesn’t seem to be any way to acquire them (they need to go to either Gracklstugh or Neverlight Grove, both of which are impossible for different reasons). Dorbo proposes a plan: the gnomes attack the Pudding Court from the Rockblight, drawing attention, while the party attacks from the other side, targeting the king specifically. First though the Young Adventurers will try to recover Entemoch’s Boon. Fargus and Eldeth will remain behind in Blingdenstone to assist the defence until the rest of the Young Adventurers return. Dorbo and Senni also agree to a peace with the Goldwhiskers, allowing them to keep their warrens. The council agrees with the plan and the meeting is over.

Dorbo wants to kill Glabbagool but the party assures him that they’ll make sure that Glabbagool doesn’t return to the Pudding King. The party departs, leaving Eldeth and Fargus in Blingdenstone. A short distance from Blingdenstone the party runs into Drethis, who points out that they were, as expected, pulled into the council’s bullshit. He urges the party to forget Blingdenstone and return with him to the surface, pointing out they don’t need the Diggermattocks, the Diggermattocks need them. The party again declines and Drethis finally reveals all (maybe), dropping their disguise. She is actually a duergar woman, a follower of Asmodeus, and she has been sent to lead the party back to the surface so that forces could be mobilized against the demon invasion. Nespip uses his Divine Sense, suspicious that she is actually a fiend herself, and finds that while she isn’t there is an invisible fiend nearby. Ralkor burns his See Invisibility scroll and sees the fiend--an imp standing near Drethis. Drethis implies that the imp is how she was able to spy on the council meeting and walks away, telling the party to call her when they change their mind.

The party journeys northwest for two days and begins looking for Entemoch’s Boon with no success (with Glabbagool slowly trailing behind). Kaia uses the Stonespeaker Crystal to speak with some mushrooms, finding out that there are earth elementals and something smaller occasionally in the area. She sets a trap and the following morning uses the crystal to speak with a mouse she catches. She doesn’t find out much more beyond confirming what the fungus told her.

The group sets out in the direction indicated by the mouse. Ralkor notices a waymarker with gnomish marking on it and shortly after Kaia hears incoherent chattering ahead of her. Sneaking ahead she finds what appears to be an earth elemental wearing embedded plate armor talking to a small impish dust elemental. She can’t understand anything they are saying. The party decides to try checking the surrounding area with no success, leading them to return to the elemental pair. Kaia speaks with them but unfortunately they don’t share a language. The dust elemental is able to speak a little bit of broken undercommon and manages to demand a gem in exchange for showing her where Entemoch’s Boon is. The dust elemental warns that there is “big danger” from “stone lizard.”

The party follows the elementals to a set of stone stairs in a large cavern, paying the dust elemental an amber gem. They carefully explore the cavern above, finding petrified remains of previous explorers. Further in they find the “stone lizards”--two dead basilisks, torn apart by something even more powerful. They also find a carved circle on the floor surrounded by three twisting columns. As Sebastian checks out what looks to be a relatively new tunnel connecting to the cavern he is attacked. A behir ambushes him from the tunnel, presumably the monster that killed the basilisks. The behir does a fantastic amount of damage to the party in a short time, nearly killing Sebastian immediately before Ralkor turns him into a giant ape. The behir then turns on Kaia, grappling her and dragging her back down the tunnel to be devoured. Luckily she breaks free of the grapple and flees. The party then discovers that the behir has a lightning breath which it unleashes on Nespip and Kaia, nearly killing them both. Finally giant ape Sebastian crushes the behir’s head with a thrown rock. He then checks towards the entrance of the cavern, thinking he saw something moving there.

The party heals up a little bit, using some of their more powerful potions, before a voice rings out. “You led a good chase, but it’s over. Surrender and I won’t kill you.” Ilvara, the drow priestess who originally made slaves of the party, has finally caught them, blocking the only way out of the cavern. When the party shouts their defiance she replies “fine, you’ve made your decision.”

We leave our heroes here, about to finally confront the woman who captured and enslaved them so long ago (in real-world time, it was like last month in game time). Tune in next time when Sebastian climbs the Empire State Building and smashes some biplanes.