Aboleth Group - "How long will Derrick's humility last? Oh, it's already over." - Session 22 LMOP

17^th Mar 2020, 7:45 – 11:00pm

In-game timeline: Start of session, day 27 (1489DR Eleint 20). End of session, day 27 (1489DR Eleint 20).

After spending a short rest in the company of Gryff, the dwarven ghost, our “Heroes” debate where to head next. Knowing that the mysterious Forge of Spells is roughly north-east of their current position, their realistic choices are “north” or “east”. Our “Heroes” spend a not-inconsiderable amount of time debating the 2 options.

They decide to head east, towards the glowing green fungus cavern, complete with 2 skeleton guards. Although the skeletons are not moving, the team are suspicious due to their observation of a skill and an arm of one of the skeletons returning to their ‘owner’ previously. Not, however, suspicious enough for Derrick NOT to try to limbo under the crossed spears of the skeletons. Does he prepare for the skeletons to move, readying his weapon and ask the others to train their ranged weapons on the skeletons in order to let rip if they show signs of movement? No, of course not. This is Derrick ‘Reckless” Trebuchet we are talking about. He crouches down and ducks under the skeletons’ weapons.

And seems to be rather surprised when the skeletons immediately animate and attempt to bring their spears crashing down on Derrick’s head. Luckily for Derrick, they both miss, but so does he in response. Eventually the rest of the group join in, and hits from Pruni and Esme, and an eventual hit from Derrick’s great axe, both skeletons are soon reduced to two piles of bones.

Guards duly disposed of, the party slowly press ahead. Mallorn sends Geoff, in spider form, off to scout the room whilst Esme and a freshly ‘resistant-to-poison’ Derrick start to clear the room of the green fungus, having been informed by Gryff that the fungus gives off poison gas on impact. Pruni, as per usual, stayed back, ready to hide at a moment’s notice.

They underestimated the power of the fungal gas. As soon as they started to clear a path, gas exploded in the surrounding area, poisoning the entire group. Derrick, Esme and Pruni resisted the effects, but Mallorn, who was still zoned in to Geoff’s senses, succumbed, and was poisoned quite severely by the gas. As if that wasn’t bad enough, while all this was distracting them, they did not notice the skeleton bones reforming into two complete skeletons, picking up their spears and attacking Mallorn, who was not only standing right next to them, but was also effectively blind, being zoned into Geoff at the time, and poisoned from the gas. How both skeletons managed to miss their attacks on such an easy target is a mystery, but miss they did, allowing Pruni to run in with two shortswords and score a hit, and even Mallorn, swinging wildly in his poisoned state, managed to hit with his not-often-wielded shortsword. Esme took pity on Mallorn and cured his poison with a Lesser Restoration spell and Derrick tried to show the non-melee fighters how it should be done….. and missed, enabling Pruni and Mallorn to take down a skeleton each, once again leaving two piles of bones.

Having learned a valuable lesson about these particular skeletons, they decide to put the skulls and sword-arms of the skeletons in the room where they originally found one of them, and then return to the fungus room to send Geoff on another scouting mission. Geoff is getting a little tired now of wandering around walls and ceilings of large caverns. He feels he has so much more to offer, than just 8 pairs of eyes.

Unfortunately, the valuable lesson wasn’t learned quite well enough, and whilst Geoff was off a-scouting, the bones once again reformed. Without an arm, a weapon, or a head, each skeleton was somewhat disadvantaged and just tried to body slam whoever was nearest. They were easily disposed of this time. Bones were smashed and ground to dust, and Derrick decided to put a thigh bone in his backpack, just in case.

The group decided to give up on this room and try a different approach, this time heading north, rather than east. Geoff ‘super-scout’ was sent off again, and once again the group sat around waiting for Mallorn to report on what his familiar was seeing. Making Derrick sit around and wait is a very dangerous tactic, even in his new. ‘humbled’ state (after his embarrassingly easy defeat at the hands of Lucian Pick), but he was snapped out of doing anything immediately stupid when Mallorn reported seeing, via Geoff, a troll-like creature in the barred room next to them. They decided to leave well alone.

A brief interlude where Derrick threw the now-active thigh bone of a skeleton away, and, a short time later, the entire group ran away at the sound of shuffling from one of the corridors. Brave Esme hung back enough to see said thigh bone slowly making its way back to its owner. Esme, in true Esme fashion, took pity on the bone and threw it back towards its owner to rejoin its ‘colleagues’.

Geoff was sent to do more scouting ahead. Derrick got very bored and just wandered off and found an old storeroom, luckily without any horrible creatures lurking in it. Buoyed by his lack of being killed, Derrick decided to scout ahead again, and wandered into a large, seemingly empty, cavern that looked like an old dining hall, and the scene of another ancient battle, according to Esme and later Mallorn, who both saw visions of the battle when entering the room.

Unfortunately the room was not empty, and the sight of a large, noisy human holding a rock that glowed with a bright light seemed to attract some undesirables in the form of a number of ghouls, who came rushing towards Derrick from the far side of the room. Quick as a flash, Esme called upon the power of her God to scare the ghouls away. Of the four that could see Esme, two of them turned and fled, whilst the other two piled in on Derrick, soon to be joined by 3 more!

The ghouls were tough. They had vicious bites as they tried to tear the flesh from Derrick. A cunning plan was devised by the group over the sounds of the battle. As Derrick drew all 5 of the ghouls to him, taking one of them down straight away, Pruni and Mallorn then readied their attacks. Derrick leapt into the air, somehow managing to avoid the opportunity attacks of all 4 ghouls, and jumping all the way to the door, thanks to his newly-acquired boots of leaping. Immediately Mallorn fired off a web spell from his newly-acquired spider staff and managed to restrain 2 of the ghouls, whilst Pruni then let loose with a crossbow bolt.

The other two ghouls piled in on Derrick, but missed, and the group started to take down the two active ghouls whilst two were restrained by webbing and two others were presumably still running away somewhere. The ghouls managed a bite on Derrick and a piercing bite on Esme, doing considerable damage. Derrick was forced to use his Second Wind to regain some health, and Mallorn used his new wand to fire off some magic missile bolts at the chief protagonist. The Ghouls managed to hit Esme again, and one of them racked his claws down Derrick which resulted in Derrick being paralysed! Pruni was busy doing her usual job of picking off the ghouls one-by-one, eventually getting her ultimate goal – an incredibly long ghoulish tongue, which she proceeded to tie around her head in a macabre headband. With her new jet-black hair, no eyebrows, slightly red-glowing eyes, testicle necklace and now a ghoul-tongue headband, Pruni looks very different from the innocent young Halfling who started this journey.

Derrick managed to break free of his paralysis as the two other ghouls broke free of the web and came charging. Esme healed Derrick so he could bear the brunt of the attack, which he did, and promptly got paralysed again. The last remaining ghoul was eventually taken down by Mallorn, allowing the group to catch their breath a little, and for Derrick to break free of his paralysis.

Just in time, for two more ghouls appeared, which may or may not have been the ones who ran off earlier. With Mallorn showing never-before-seen prowess with a shortsword he took out one of them with two hits, whilst Pruni made good use of her assassinate ability, followed by an impressive sneak attack to take down the other one, before either of them could land a hit.

And so we leave our “Heroes”, battered and bruised after another tough battle, but still alive. Having retreated to the empty storeroom, and barricading themselves in there, they stayed for a long rest to recover as best they could. What will have gone on in the mine in the meantime?