Session date: Monday, April 15, 2019
Game date: Saturday, May 28, 211
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 7, hp 41, xp 71958/140000
Caryatid, Magic-user 5, hp 24, xp 21127/40000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 4, hp 15, xp 9932/16000
Adrien, Fighter 4, hp 16, xp 10098/16000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 5, hp 17, xp 17024/32000
Father Chase Pike, Cleric 3, hp 13, xp 4655/6000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 2237/4000
Boe, Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 118/2000
When the adventurers arrived in the Rusty Lantern, they entered to find a fellow adventuring party, "Shorty's Sirens", celebrating with a hearty meal and full flagons of wine. Shorty greeted Gulleck cheerily, and told her they had just come up from a rather successful delve. Gulleck tried to draw out where they had been, and Shorty said they had taken canoes across the underground sea on the third level. She also mentioned that on the far side of the underground sea, her party had found a partially flooded research laboratory of some sort, largely untouched since the day that Ancient Idalium fell. She told them that there was a door in the first room with a strange mechanical combination lock that they had been unable to figure out, so they had left it for now.
Well, this sounded like an interesting lead, so the party asked Shorty whether she would be willing to loan them her canoes. The two parties were on good terms, and Shorty was willing to rent them for 10 gold darics, plus a "security deposit" of 100 darics to cover replacement costs in case something happened to the canoes. The deal was made and Shorty went with the adventurers down into the basement of the tavern to retrieve the canoes from her party's secure vault.
The guards at the trapdoor seemed irritated to have to deal with the canoes twice in as many hours, and charged an additional toll of 2 gold darics per canoe for the hassle of lowering them down into the dungeon with the winch. Once down below, Chase and Orin hoisted one canoe onto their shoulders, and Adrien and Boe lifted the other one. It was somewhat awkward maneuvering the canoes around the corners of the underground streets and through the narrow tunnel dug by the gnomes, but with a little bit of extra time they made their way through to the Temple of Hedonism.
As soon as they opened the doors to the temple, they were surprised to see yet another adventuring party: Moonpetal's Marauders. In fact, both parties were surprised and goggled at each other foolishly for a few seconds. Then, Moonpetal the elf waved his hands and murmured arcane words, and before the adventurers could react, he had cast a Charm Person spell on Simon!
"Ah, Simon, my dear friend. Just the man I was looking for. We need those canoes! It's absolutely critical, so hurry up and hand them over."
Simon said, "Sure thing, pal!" and ordered Orin to hand over his end of the canoe to Moonpetal's companions. But Caryatid knew what was up and cast her own Charm Person spell at Moonpetal, while Father Chase put down his end of the canoe, and drew forth a "spell of bondage" scroll he had obtained long ago in the "study room" of the Temple of Hedonism. Moonpetal whipped out a wand, but the adventurers won initiative, and Moonpetal's muscles locked up, completely paralyzed, while Caryatid's spell swept over his mind. Simon protested vocally at this treatment of his dearest friend.
Gulleck stepped up to Moonpetal. "Now then, you're going to release Simon from your spell." Moonpetal would have nodded, but could do little more than blink, but he ended the charm and Simon scowled as he realized he had been magically swindled. Gulleck told Moonpetal's companions to carry him away, and then they moved further into the temple.
No sooner had they passed from the vestibule into the main temple, they encountered yet another adventuring party from the Rusty Lantern tavern. This time it was St. Dwindum's Heroes, a group of clerics and their followers raiding the dungeon in order to fund the expansion of the tiny Cult of St. Dwindum. They chatted with the pious Brother Michael and the more worldly and gregarious Brother Randy, warning them about Moonpetal's crew, and then took their leave to proceed below.
They passed through the empty basement den of the Temple of Hedonism, turned the corner and proceeded down to the third level. As they opened the great stone door at the bottom of the stairs, they were surprised by voices.
"Is that you, Master Randy? Did you forget something? We... oh."
The door swung open to reveal eight black-robed cultists, with goathead holy symbols hanging around their necks. The cultists seemed quite embarrassed and greeted the adventurers tersely and then took their own leave to the west, while the party went east. Finally the penny was beginning to drop, and Caryatid was putting two and two together as to why the leader of the cultists had such a familiar voice.
They carried the canoes to the rocky beach at the end of the eastern corridor. The underground sea was dark and silent, and the gentle lapping of water on the rocky shore seemed muffled and distant. The canoes could each seat two people, so Simon and Gulleck took one, while Caryatid and Adrien (along with Norman the horrible giant ferret) boarded the other. The retainers were left to wait on the beach with a couple of torches and a tinderbox.
The canoes were pushed out into the water and they paddled off to the left, following the cavern wall. The sounds of their retainers moving around on the gravel quickly faded, and everything seemed preternaturally quiet. Even the splash of their oars in the water sounded oddly muted, and the canoes did not seem to leave as much of a wake in the water as they expected. They followed the wall to the north and as it curved to the east and eventually they came to the waterfall from which they had rescued Caryatid, about a year ago in game time. They avoided the falling waters and continued following the cavern wall to the east, eventually coming to another rocky beach, somewhat larger than the one they had left from. There was a rowboat on the shore here, and to the north at the back of the cavern a passage led deeper into the caves.
They beached the canoes on the shore and got out to inspect the rowboat. It seemed in decent enough shape, and they noticed that on the bow of the boat a thick rope ran through a metal eyelet. One end was tightly tied to an iron spike that was staked deeply into the rocky ground next to the rowboat and after passing through the eyelet, the rope trailed away into the dark water of the sea. Gulleck pulled on the rope and a portion of it near the boat lifted clear of the lake, water dripping quietly from it.
Not wanting to take the time right now to investigate this further, with their retainers waiting for them back at the other beach, the adventurers instead chose to explore the tunnel to the north. This led them to a natural cavern where two passages led off to the left and the right. They chose to explore the right tunnel, and after about thirty or forty feet, they saw that the ground, walls, and even the roof of the tunnel were becoming overgrown with all sorts of mushrooms and fungi. There were pale white puffballs, grotesque elongated mushrooms, mosslike growths of mold of various colors, and strange filamentous hairs that wafted in the breeze as they passed by nervously. The fungus seemed to get denser as they moved through the tunnel until it covered almost all of the surfaces. They trod upon this living carpet nervously, but so far there seemed to be no ill effects as mushrooms collapsed under their boots.
Turning a corner in the tunnel, they came upon the sight of five enormous ants milling about the cavern. They were easily six feet long each, and their black carapaces reflected the gleam of Simon's glowing sword. The ants didn't seem aggressive, as they chewed at the fungus on the walls and ground, but they were blocking further progress, and the party didn't feel up to risking a fight when they were outnumbered. They retreated back the way they had come, collecting some of the fungus in an empty wineskin for further examination.
They took the canoes back to "Rocco Beach", reuniting with their retainers. (I had been rolling wandering monster checks for both groups, but fortunately for the retainers nothing had shown up while they were waiting.) Simon had the bright idea to just keep the canoes here for next time, so they wouldn't have to lug them back up through the dungeon. Shorty would surely understand! "We'll just pay her a little extra for the extra time we keep them for." There was an abandoned shrine off the hall not far from the beach and the adventurers dragged the canoes in, leaned them up against the walls, and then Caryatid cast Wizard Lock on the door.
They returned to the Rusty Lantern, where they found Shorty waiting for them. She was not amused by the fact that they had returned emptyhanded, and very much did not understand why.
"This was not the deal we had, Gulleck! I expected better treatment than this from you."
Gulleck, who had kind of expected that this wasn't going to go the way Simon described, could only gesture apologetically. Shorty scowled at them all and stomped out into the street.
