Sessions 81 & 82 - Jaxii And Iwee: Fiend Fanciers
17th & 19th November 2023
In-game timeline: Start of session: 1490DR Ches 16. End of session: 1490DR Ches 17
The group stare at Iwee as she stands for a moment, as if in a trance. After a minute or so she seems to snap out of it and explains that Kardreth was communicating with her once more - they are on the right track, but need to hurry!
In what is now a traditional fashion, Jaxii digs out her portable hole, now apparently named "Harold", and places it at the base of the door. Iwee looks though and spots what seems to be a large room, with some stone pillars - she is unable to see the whole extent of the room, but can see some small fires at the far end.
Derrick summons Pacino within this room and zones in to check out what is in there, using Pacino's vision. He spots two duergar at the far end of the room, cooking over a fire. They spot Pacino and come towards the owl - Derrick makes him fly up high to the ceiling and then unsummons him. The duergar seem to believe it was a stirge.
Then came more planning from our "heroes", unsurprisingly.
Eventually they decide the deception route. They walk boldly into the room, led by Derrick, and announce to the two duergar within that they have been sent for by Castellan, and want to know why there are no "troops" upstairs. The ruse seems to work - in that the duergar do not immediately attack - but one of them goes out of the room, seemingly to fetch Castellan. The other tries to question the party, and becomes suspicious at their answers. As they approach, he decides to run off, heading in the opposite direction from the other one.
As our "Heroes" approach the fire (except Iwee who turns invisible and keeps in the shadows), they are challenged by some smithy duergar from the south, who have seemingly been fetched by the cook. The ruse seems to be failing, and eventually Derrick prepares for the attack that is likely to come sooner rather than later. And they are not wrong! The ruse starts to crumble and Derrick decides to attack them before Castellan arrives.
Karoshi makes one of the duergar drop to the ground with a "Command" spell (2nd level, to try to get two of the duergar). This proves useful, as there are three of these well-armoured smiths, who carry fire-lances, to defeat (plus the cook, though he isn't too keen on fighting!). The party defeat them, with Karoshi managing to manacle the Commanded duergar before he can get his weapon primed.
They seem to despatch these duergar just in time since, at this point, the door to the north of them opens and a very attractive human stands in the doorway, asking politely why they are here. This is obviously the infamous Castellan!
The party sense that this is a fiend, despite his outward appearance and his charming demeanour. Charming is the operative word, as Jaxii seems VERY taken by Castellan's words, and she starts to walk towards him. The party quickly react by protecting themselves against further charms, and Derrick hits Jaxii, trying to snap her out of her "charm" (on the assumption that she is charmed - though she does seem to be walking towards Castellan quite willingly). Karoshi tries to "Command" her to stop, but she resists his efforts.
Jaxii responds to this attack from Derrick by hitting him back, hard. As the party panic a little and wonder how to prevent Jaxii from going with the fiend, she exits the room and Castellan closes the door behind them.
Derrick reacts quickly and runs to the door, flinging it open. He is faced by two large, black, shadowy mastiff dogs, baring their teeth before him. Castellan and Jaxii are walking out of sight around a corner. Derrick quickly shoves the dogs out of the way and pushes past them, hoping to reach his friend Jaxii before she disappears…
Derrick focusses on trying to catch up with Jaxii, but realises that he needs to spend time lighting a torch, as the corridors leading away from him are in darkness. This allows the dogs to take a bite out of him while he is busy starting a fire. Karoshi runs up to take on the dogs, and Iwee, still invisible, tries to help.
Derrick spots a nearby door just being closed and runs to open it, taking another bite from a dog in the process. Opening the door reveals a small room, with Jaxii and Castellan standing by the far wall. Derrick can only watch for now as Castellan leans down and gives Jaxii a long, passionate kiss. Despite this kiss (unbeknownst to any other than Jaxii) draining her life away, the dragonborn still seems infatuated by Castellan.
As Karoshi and Iwee battle one of the two dogs, Iwee becoming visible again in the process, the other dog runs after Derrick, but misses his attack. Derrick drops his torch and rushes across the room to challenge Castellan and try to get him away from Jaxii. As he runs across the large rug on the floor, the rug lifts up and envelops Derrick, stopping him in his tracks. At this point Castellan bids Jaxii farewell and walks through the wall!
The dog previously attacking Derrick runs into the room ant attacks the rug - I guess they aren't on the same side - but this manages to cause damage to Derrick too. Jaxii, a little confused and upset by her new beau's sudden disappearance, decides to help Derrick escape the rug and manages to pull the rug off of Derrick, freeing him.
With two large dogs and a rug to contend with, the party battle on. Karoshi runs around to help a shouting Derrick. This unfortunately leaves Iwee alone in the great hall as Castellan appears and invites Iwee, whom he refers to by name, to join him. Iwee seems entranced by his beauty and charm and follows him towards the door behind the stone throne. This action does seem to free Jaxii from her charmed state, however, and she continues to help Derrick, who by this point is looking quite unhealthy!
Karoshi sees some hideous creatures walking down the corridor towards all of them, but luckily he looks over towards where Iwee is and sees that she is no longer there! He turns and runs back to the great hall and sees Castellan beckoning Iwee over towards the door behind the throne. He "Commands" Iwee to return to him and his command seems to work, and Iwee, seemingly reluctantly, turns and walks back towards the paladin.
Jaxii, raging over her particularly bad day, smashes the rug with her greatsword and the animated rug falls to the floor. She moves over to help a struggling Derrick with the last mastiff. Karoshi grabs Iwee to ideally stop her returning to Castellan. She still seems keen to return to him, so Karoshi apologises and then slaps her round the face, doing enough damage to snap her out of her charm and she realises that Castellan is not as nice as he seems. Derrick takes care of the last shadow dog but this draws the attention of one of the hideous creatures in the hallway, and he shuffles into the room. Jaxii becomes really scared is paralysed with fear at the creature, taking damage from it as it lays into her.
Castellan meanwhile seems to know that his hold over Iwee has gone… for now… and he goes into the room behind the throne, closing the door behind him.
As the grotesque, shuffling creatures arrive at the split party, they start to attack. Karoshi, happy now that Iwee is out of immediate danger from Castellan, tries to turn them with his paladinic powers and all the fiends turn and run as fast as they can (which is not very fast!) away from them all, including the one in the room with Derrick and Jaxii.
Taking advantage of the lull in the battle, our "Heroes" quickly run to the forge room that they spotted before, hoping to be able to follow the stream that Derrick noticed. They stop off for some looting of some rooms they find, and then are a little disappointed to discover the room is a dead end - the stream ends at a very, very high waterfall into darkness below. Karoshi does spot a ladder leading down into these depths, though it is inaccessible from this side and they need to find another route to get to it.
The party need to return to the great hall. They are conscious that all their faffing around, looting, talking, investigating, using Harold the Hole etc, may have allowed the enemy to regroup.
And this is, in fact, the case. When they open the door to the great hall, they see the five hideous creatures standing there waiting for them. However, our "Heroes" are ready for them, and they blast them with everything they have left - which is not very much as lots of spells and abilities have already been used up today. It does include a Fireball from Jaxii, which is well-positioned to hit all of them for some damage, and Thunderwave from Karoshi. Together with their normal attacks over the next few rounds, it is enough, and the party manage to despatch all 5 of the creatures, who vanish as they are defeated.
They spot the original cook duergar standing by the throne door and run over towards him, though he manages to go through the door before they reach him. Running in to that room, they see the cook and allow him to leave in exchange for some information. They ask him to guide the gnomes that they left on the floor above to safety, suggesting that he travels through the Sporerealm as it is probably safer than the Hook Horror lair. They also find a map of this level of the mine on a big table, with notes indicating that this level has been excavated over the last couple of years. It shows a means of getting to the ladder beside the waterfall and Iwee is convinced that Kardreth is further down than this level. Not wanting to waste more time, they rush round the mine, aiming for the ladder. They stop only to rub out the runic markings on the floor near to a shallow pool that Karoshi believes may be some form of summoning circle.
As they run through the mine, ignoring the doors and corridors to focus on getting to the ladder, they quickly come to another open area, that seems littered with a number of, relatively old, duergar bodies. At this point they stop running, as they see Castellan standing next to one of two doors leading in the direction they know the ladder is. As our "Heroes" all come into view, Castellan calmy, and smoothly, expresses a level of disappointment in their actions as he opens the door next to him and then just disappears.
Iwee, keen to get to Kardreth, runs to the open door, hoping it will lead to the ladder. As soon as she reaches the door she is faced by a very large, very angry, orange ape-like demon. The ape smashes Iwee with a heavy fist and she is knocked away from the door and falls to the floor. The ape then jumps over to Iwee and pummels the little gnome with its fists and then bites her while she is down. All three attacks connect and Iwee falls unconscious below the massive, demonic ape.
Karoshi, wanting to do anything to get the ape away from his unconscious friend, runs over to stand over her, casting protection from evil on himself as he runs. Jaxii, pulling out all the stops (other than using her inspiration, of course, which seems to be being saved for a rainy day), goes into a frenzy and runs to the ape. Derrick uses a valuable spell slot and casts Reduce on the ape, succeeding and vastly diminishing the imposing nature of the fiend. The quick actions of all the group prove decisive, as Iwee is now protected from further attacks, and the ape is more exposed to the frenzy of the barbarian. Jaxii lays into the demon in a frenzy and does so much damage that it is taken down before it can do more harm - as it falls it disappears, showing that it was a summoned creature. Jaxii takes her level of exhaustion caused by her frenzy, and Iwee, having been ignored by Derrick, is restored back to consciousness by Karoshi, though she also has a level of exhaustion.
Battered, bruised and low on resources, our "Heroes" look through the door that the ape emerged from but see only a room. The other door nearby does seem to lead in the right direction to the ladder, so they run down this corridor, arriving (via another door) at a ledge over a long fall into the darkness, with their sought after ladder leading down…