Session 76 - Iwee Befriends Spire Forge
28th July 2023
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Ches 15. End of session: 1490DR Ches 15
Our "Heroes" take a breather after a tense morning avoiding Hook Horrors, and a busy, though not too taxing, battle with some strange fungal creatures. Derrick seems to be lost in his own thoughts for a while. Karoshi hands out healing as if hit points grew on trees. Jaxii chats with her ancestors.
They eventually set off again and after a while they come across signs of recent habitation - wooden barricades, boxes etc.
Derrick asks Pacino to head forwards on a scouting mission, with Derrick viewing through Pacino's eyes. He spots a couple of Duergar standing on a 'landing', one of whom seems to be lining up a crossbow shot towards the owl! Derrick quickly recalls Pacino and the group discuss their strategy…
… which seems to involve running towards the platform, brandishing weapons and torches and hoping for the best. Derrick, who has limited vision requiring a torch in the dark, runs forward first. He sees nothing, but does receive a crossbow bolt in his chest for his troubles. He reaches some cover, and Karoshi follows behind.
Everyone now hears shouting in a strange language, but sounding like alarms being raised. Fearing that perhaps they have been spotted, the party advance. More bolts are fired, though these miss their targets. Eventually the group arrive at the landing and find it abandoned, though it is an obvious guard post. The tunnel doubles back on itself to eventually open out into some form of entrance, though the group cannot see the detail from this distance.
As the party regroup, they are attacked by more crossbow bolts coming from behind them - one of them hitting Iwee. She responds by sending a Faerie Fire in that direction, exposing an arrow slit in the wall beyond, with a humanoid creature behind it now glowing in magical radiance.
To avoid more crossbow bolts, our "heroes" run to the wall beneath the arrow slit. More arrow slits are noticed, and more bolts come towards them as they do this, but they manage to get to the wall and in cover from the arrow slits.
With Iwee distracting absolutely everything in the area with her bagpipes, Jaxii uses her portable hole, and a javelin, they create a hole in the wall beneath the first arrow slit, and poke a javelin at the Duergar standing behind it, stabbing his legs. He is rather annoyed, but unable to do much about it.
Derrick uses his boots to jump over the barricades and reach the large stone door entrance, which seems to have recently been closed. The rest catch up with him but have to run around the barricades, which invites another couple of crossbow bolts. Eventually they all stand before the massive, dwarven, stone door. At this point they find out there are more arrow slits in this area, and more crossbow bolts fly in their direction.
Wanting to quickly get away from this death-trap, Derrick casts Reduce upon the stone door, which causes it to shrink and collapse in its frame, revealing the platform beyond, which holds Duergar warriors! Our "Heroes" meet the challenge head-on. Whilst being shot at from arrow slits, they push through the door and meet the pale dwarves. Derrick enlarges himself but finds that the Duergar have the same trick up their sleeves! In addition, they seem to be able to go invisible which causes the group some problems. Some Duergar seem to be across a rope bridge over a chasm, whilst others engage the party directly, scoring some significant hits, though also managing a couple of critical misses too, which help the party in taking them down. First Derrick takes out an enlarged Duergar, then Karoshi manages to find an invisible one, enabling Iwee to make a rare swing with her rapier and run him through, dropping him to the floor to a round of applause from the rest of the group.
Derrick takes down the last Duergar in their area (that the party are aware of) and then the party consider running across the bridge to the others. However, they think better of it, which turns out to be a good decision, as shortly afterwards the bridge falls down - it has been cut from the other side!
With no obvious, easy, way across, the party discuss their options. They seem to be out of range of the arrow slits, and there seems to be nothing firing at them across the bridge. Jaxii's rage drops.
Our "Heroes" decide to search the walls for some secret doors - thinking that there must be a way to get to the arrow slits. This proves a sensible option and between them Iwee and Jaxii figure out how to open a secret door that they find. It opens into an empty corridor leading to one of the arrow slits above the entrance, with the far end blocked off with a rockfall. Suspicious about the fact that there is nothing here, despite there being someone firing at them from the arrow slit, Iwee uses a Faerie Fire spell to show up any invisible creatures. And an invisible Duergar, trying to hide amongst the rubble, is illuminated in light!
Derrick rushes in to attack and gets a couple of hits in before Iwee can stop him. The Duergar looks scared - he has nowhere to turn. Iwee pulls Derrick back and, in an amazing display of persuasion, convinces the Duergar to surrender.
With Iwee promising to let the Duergar escape the mine with his life if he answers their questions, the pale dwarf - whose name is Cres'kcha, which translates into Dwarvish as Spire Forge - lowers his weapon and answers their questions in full. They interrogate him about who is in the mine and where they are located and he tells them the bad news about the numbers of Duergar, and other creatures, in the mine - as far as he is aware. After getting as much information from him as they can, our "Heroes" are true to their word and let him go - he leaves the mine entrance, promising to leave the mine completely.
And so we leave our "Heroes" contemplating their position - knowing that they are able to bypass the chasm, but also knowing that the mine has been alerted to their presence. And even that they may be being watched right now…