Session 5

Date: 2/4/2018

Attending: Jake, Dave, Wes, Aaron, Justin

Absent: Joey – flight delayed

Start Time: 7:25 p.m.

The party is in the basement of the ruined temple on Demos the Cursed Isle. The “away team” had just returned and shared their explorations with the “home team” and was in need of rest. Before bedding down Orenthal slays the grub that is mindlessly rooting about the room in an act of random violence and totally not out of meta-game irritation that it keeps being mentioned in flavor text and game logs. Upon resting the party discovers that Osbert and Soromir have filth fever, contracted from rat bites. Orenthal works on his spell book while Norris tends to them, and the group ends up resting for a full 16 hours. Neither Soromir or Osbert are able to shake the disease during that time.

After resting the party has a discussion about where to explore next. Involving Old Jarl, he says that whichever way they go he feels the entire group should go so that if a way off the island is discovered there is no need to reclaim part of the group. Everyone agrees, and they decide to explore the caverns further, this time taking the first right fork.

They head out, sticking to the plan and take the first right fork past the location of the dead cultist who had the note. After walking for a short ways the tunnel opens up on the right side into a large cavern. The tunnel continues past it along the left wall. The cavern floors and walls seem to be moving, and after a moment they realize that there are dozens and dozens of giant centipedes swarming around the cavern. They attempt to sneak past, but two centipedes break away from the mass and follow the party. The group leads the insects down the hall a bit away from the cavern and the swarm, and then turns and slays the followers.

They continue down the tunnel. After some time they notice a change in the moss and lichen on the walls – a new white cottony strand substance has appeared. Examination reveals it to be spider web, and the further down the tunnel they go the thicker it becomes until it is falling from the ceiling like curtains. Osbert lights a makeshift torch and burns through the webbing, noting that it burns relunctantly and not for long.

Eventually they push through into a room that seems to have tunnels or cubbies branching off from either side. The floor is covered in webbing, but does not hinder movement. In the far end of the room, 4 webbing pods hang from the ceiling. The party cautiously advances, and once they are in the center of the room giant spiders the size of ponies pour out of the cubbies, 6 total. The fight is furious and turns towards desperation. Osbert goes down and is revived with a healing spell. Ostar, Jace, and Soromir are poisoned by viscous bites. Born-Under-Red-Sky is killed outright. Finally Ostar hits several spiders with a burning hands spell which causes them to flee. The party beats a hasty retreat back down the tunnel. Many of them are wounded and suffering from poison, and the filth fever is taking its toll as well. None-the-less they managed to kill 2 of the 6 spiders, and they resolve to return to finish the job (well, after a debate with Osbert about whether it is necessary or not). They rest for 8 hours in the tunnel (between the centipede swarm room and the spiders, as is nervously noted by those on watch) heal up as best as they can, and head back. This time, they go in with a plan to lure the spiders to the mouth of the tunnel and limit how many can approach and how many are exposed. Osbert charges in as bait, but the spiders get the drop on him and surround him alone in the room. They party sticks to the plan however, and Osbert – poisoned and wounded – manages to break free and pull the spiders into the intended position.  The party stands two abreast, swapping out the frontline as needed, and eventually slays all 4 remaining spiders.

Cutting open one of the pods in the back of the spider ambush room reveals a giant centipede who groggily flees back towards the swarm cavern. The party continues on through the tunnels and eventually notice that it curves around. This time they hug the left wall at all intersections, and find that they are moving through tunnels the “away team” explored the previous day. They wind up back at the temple ruins basement, but find that several centipedes have entered to scavenge the grub corpse. They fall back to where the choker ambushed Soromir and make camp.

End of Session

500 XP; 50 to Wes and Justin for blogging