Undermountain Session 6

He's not a smart man, but he knows what love is....

Wild magic in Lleyash surged on healing preventing him from talking (meh). Ysara, under a confusion spell, nearly brained him again as he lay restrained, his sightless form hearing the hammer crash down next to him. A Gloom Weaver ended Ysara after the acolyte paralyzed Ysara. Malsanos soon followed, and things were looking grim. At one point it was Esvele and the tall greatsword weilding man someone had addressed as Derrion. They attempted a short negotiation while Sumfun crept forward to get Ysara back on her feet. The negotiation ended, as expected, with the man’s head flying across the room.

This marked the second time the Delvers had seen the Shadovar and Shadar-kai elves, denizens of the Shadowfell. It was unclear what business they had accompanying the man from House Shadowdusk, but that mystery would have to wait as this marked the first time they would meet the Wizlards.

Following a vision of Lleyash in jeopardy, sent to Lilly from Selune, the Wizlards had made quick time from Saltmarsh to Waterdeep, braving stormy seas and arriving just as the Delvers were fighting in the temple. Abe and Maura, en route to Evermeet, couldn’t be summoned in time, but the ranger Tylsaria hopped on board the Kraken Chaser with Lilly and Ellie and she was the first into the room, raising her bow at Esvele and the panicked senseless body of Lleyash. “Get away from my friend.” With tensions already high, this quickly devolved in to Esvele’s “Fuck you” and an arrow in her shoulder. Ellie was trying to calm Lleyash, but it wasn’t until Ysarra sent some healing around the room the heads cooled. Lilly started the long work of cleaning the desecration from the temple, the Wizlards taking Lleyash above to have his eyes and tongue restored and maybe learn what they’d done to him and what he’s learned in return*

This amounts to using the incubus and shadow demons to keep him under, probing is memories for clues on how he accesses his wild magic. He’d heard them mention the master, the tower, House Shadowdusk a few times, but the only thing that stuck clearly in his fractured mind – wrecked from a couple weeks of captivity, deprivation, torture and the intrusion into his mind – was their interest in his magic and “unlocking Umberlee’s Cache”

As the Wizlards led Lleyash away to a house of healing (who was attended to be a newly restored Froderick via True Resurrection by Team Lareal), the Delvers continued their search of the House of Selune, finding some additional treasures (mostly potions of wild magic seemingly crafted from Lleyash’s blood), maps, chests with hidden bottoms, and the first of many desks and the requisite lore dumps.

Lore in the Consolidated Lore page, but in short the Shadovar and House Shadowdusk seem intent on finding Karsus’ heir, unlocking the secrets of his blood to control the blue flame/wild magic, and this has been going on since the Black Spider and redbrands botched the job in Phandelin some time ago. References to the blackstaff being a weak ally and relying on the tower for help as well as a clue for getting through the scary door using “his symbol” (Manshoon’s Zentarim). The sender confirmed the master’s interest in one of the Queen’s Guard, command them to send any matching Galiana’s description forward. Oh ahd you learned that some hundreds of years ago, the High Initiate of Selune worked with Elmister and Lareal to imprison a dark servant of Halaster or Manshoon in his sarcophagus, certain he couldn’t be killed but needing to keep him from realizing his dark designs. Someone names Tomas, with stern warnings on the consequences of setting him free. Oops. At least you got a couple magic items…

The Delvers took a long rest, and then made their way through the door. Instead of leading to a collapsed larder, by using the symbol they activated some portal which placed them instead in a path leading into the cellars of the famed Kolat tower and the house of Manshoon. They traversed a few empty(ish) lower levels highlighting some history, perceiving as best they can but sometimes rushed in Ysarra’s urgent but dwindling hopes of finding Galiana. Sumfun nabbed an odd ornate robe and purloined the crystal orb someone had recently been using for scrying on Lleyash, found another desk and map and thrilling lore dump about Shieldmeet, the shards, and Manshoon’s history, investigated an odd mirror that showed things as they used to be, and tried to solve a riddle in a staircase wall written in language they couldn’t read. As a result, Esvele and Ysarra went bouncy bouncy trying to navigate the stairs up, but they eventually landed on the Kolat library.

In the library, they made some bad rolls but did stumble on one of the library’s guardians, a dwarf with praying hands that, with inspired insight, they found they could place a book in it’s hands. Esvele handed Ysara the encrypted journal from the jade temple she’d been carting around, and the statue immediately started reading it – the guardians can translate from any language even hidden or ciphered text. Learning more about Acamar from his journal and his focus on the blood war (lore page), they were also joined by one of the Library’s other inhabitants, the ghost Paige Drucker. Paige listened in rapt attention as Acamar’s journal was read, then retrieved it, coded it’s spine, and floated down the hall to place it with other journals. In return for listening to Esvele’s journal and all of her secrets (which she also codes and shelves at the close), she answered the party's question on “the most interesting book” taking them to the center of the library, a pulsing circular floor an a nearby pile of books with one charred book on the floor.

The party found a damaged page, but remembering the mirror below that shows things as they were, Esvele sunk through the floor and was able to read the page in the mirror. Once the party heard the riddle – something about the more you take, the more you leave behind – they struggled to connect it with the designs on the floor until Paige gives them more insight, saying again that the last person – a pale elf with white hair and a scarred face – had been pacing around the circle reading the page before setting it aflame in victory and then disappearing. Making footprints aroudn the middle ring, the party then bamfed to Manshoon’s real chambers (skipping some nasty levels of the tower in the process).

Esvele seemed convinced that the previous visitor might be Rhasbaradon and started running from room to room. The other Delvers, perhaps remembering better his lifeless body being laid in a forest, started negotiating Manshoon’s planar chambers, including the demon head Ladudobby that kept him company in his lab and the childrens books and romance novels he wrote on the side. They accidentally torched some scrolls and lore in a failed attempt to disarm a trap, and also struggled to get past an enchanted table that forces guests to sit and reveal dark secrets about themselves. Up another set of stairs, you learned more of the history of Manshoon and Halaster, their work together and their split and apparent battle. Also (avoiding a mirror that Ladudobby had warned them about), more about Manshoon’s fixation with trapping sentience into objects, tests with his canaries like Daffodil (Xanaphia) and others, and early clues on his ultimate aim to use this "trapped sentience" with the blood of Karsus.

One other item of note was the chess board like the one in the hidden landing above Fiends End. The last visitor had ripped out a page of interest from a nearby tome and the Delvers unraveled the clues left by the last guest and moved the correct piece to the square underlined on the handwritten paper, leading to Shadowdusk.

“…whether you believe the shadow weave is back, or even ever existed, there has always been a white queen and a black queen. There has always been a darkness behind the lights…”

Esvele and Ysarra, ever eager, jumped through the portal, their friends following, leaving the Iron Bands of Bilarro fastened around the unconscious man dying in the cage nearby 😄

As that party was pulled through time and space to the portal in Shadowdusk Hold, the Spear – Zanalor, Peter, Malsanos and Pessius – was taking some extra time in the Academy to rest up and learn what they could about the mage and his mountain. The headmaster confirmed he was not the mage Halaster but an arcanoloth and said that they’d need the aid of his Disciples if they hoped to defeat the mad mage. Another short lore dump using the tapestry, and it seems that at least one disciple Rhodysa has already been killed, the Delvers ending her Leshen form in the druid’s wood above. Tomas has been imprisoned by the chursh of Selune, Akasha and Jhessira, Muriel the Warrior Mage and Styvirwen the summoning master, and perhaps one of the strongest Zarovich who was shunted to antoher plane, his power stripped from him and the threat removed You learned about mythals – how Halaster has controlled magic in undermountain, in the demiplane of Barovia, etc etc but let’s get on with it.

The headmaster took the Spear to Acamar the Apprentice’s chambers in the lower doorms through a secret door they’d missed, and the heroes negotiated some nasty blood pools. They solved the riddle of the portal to the jade temple in Willow’s wood and also learned that Acamar was a Shadowdusk and devotee of the Disciple Akasha, trying to emulate her blood magic. They found a trapped storeroom but used Peter’s knowledge of medicine to correctly solve a riddle of decomposition and enter a subterranean cavern.

In the cavern, they found luminuous crystals, some nasty mushrooms, and another rune from Jhessirya who gave Peter and Pessius boons. They also found cages including one with a trapped man "Porto" pleading weakly for release. Zanalor threatened that any hostile move would be met with death, and hope lit in the captive’s face. When freed, he attacked Zanalor with a sharp rock, but was not killed by the thief. While the party held him in the cavern walls with a magical door from Pessius’ cloak, they discussed ways to interrogate him, causing Peter to question their motives and goodness. When they did bring the captive to consciousness and start asking questions with harsh voices, the captive finally got what he’d been wishing for – the chance to end his own life and forget the horrific things he’s seen and experienced “at her hand.”

The Spear made a more sullen way down the caverns, finding more evidence of cages, a transmutation workbench, and a glowing orange rune that took a large chunk out of Zanalor and Pessius remembered only too late from her prophetic dream days before. Before going into the carved door behind the transmutation bench, Sumfun (read the DMs face and) elected to check on the sounds from the cages and sloshing waters on the other side of the tunnel. He found the cages of the Lords’ Alliance party they’d been sent after (but failed to find the scrying crystal) as well as a Spirit Board, but more importantly, he found the slowly recovering beholder Xanathar, who had fled down the dark chimney of Undermountain to this level.

Pessius was understandably shaken, but her friends made quick and satisfying work of the head of the Xanathar guild outside of his lair. Taking a pound of flesh (that Pessius would soon have made into gloves and undergarments), the Spear then explored another level below.

This level seemed to be of ancient stone of designs (Netheril) that the party couldn’t recognize but also a rank, disturbing thrum and vibration they soon confirmed as living flesh growing down halls and choking rooms with nauseating gore. Avoiding a few traps, missing a few doors, but most importantly avoiding a TPK from two hulking abberations that had been alerted to your noisy presence. After one of them seemed to steal Nuitt’s memories and make him a near idiot, Pessius quickly polymorphed it into a cat and instructed the party to attack the other one. On his turn, Nuitt looked around, not understanding language*, and uttered his battle cry “Blobby purrpurr go burny burn!” and threw one of the fire opals from his helm of brilliance. Since he’s no longer able to use it, the pebble just sailed at the cat without blossiming into a fireball, but it did exactly two points of damage, causing the cat to turn back into the hulking and confused aberration and pissing Pessius off to no end.

On a failed save, the target loses all proficiencies; it can’t cast spells; it can’t understand language; and if its Intelligence and Charisma scores are higher than 5, they become 5.

Peter felt the anger of his Celestial and it fueled a new fiend that joined them, eating into one of the aberrations and keeping it at bay as the party soon downs the first. Ironically, it’s Nuitt who puts the killing blow on the first, but uncertain if it’s dead he continued to punch holes in the lifeless pile of flesh. When the last one died, Pessius turns Nuitt into a turtle and puts him in her bag.

The party decided they will return to the Academy since Nuitt’s condition is beyond any of their abilities, but they ran into a trio of Shadovar demon riders on the way back up. Outmatched, Zanalor made inspired use of Hunger of Hadar, blinding and slowing the enemies within. While Zanalor and Pessius held their attacks, waiting to see if any emerge from the darkness, Peter used his Devil’s Sight to send barrages of eldritch blasts into the darkness. The damage from Hadar and Peter’s bolts soon grinds the patrol into nothingness. During the fight, Pessius had thrown the turtle to the ground and also given Nuitt a new friend to play with, using a patch from her cloak, a mastiff Titties appeared and gave Nuitt no end of joy and comfort. Nuitt, not knowng better, took his nunchucks and sent Titties into the darkness to fetch. Titties seemed to locate the nunchucks but not before the hunger of hadar exacted a heavy price. Pessius (with a nat 20 on animal handling) called to the dog, who summoned his last strength to crawl out of the darkness before dying at their feet.

Returning to the Academy, Pessius used another patch from her coat, making another mastiff for Nuitt. Nuitt knew better, but pretended for the wizard’s sake to embrace the dog and leave the lie alone. They entreated the headmaster to use restorative magic on Nuitt in exchange for Pessius’ cloak and two scrolls she carried. He aslo agreed to let them stay safely in his office while he has the aforementioned undergarments and gloves made. Pessius thought to check on the tiefling twins, finding them in class and making a note to talk to them in the morning. Pessius had a dream of the Open Lord walking down a hall with the Blackstaff, turning to give it to her. Of Zanalor joining her, but when she turned to look at him he had only one eye like the beholder. And he turned their friends to stone statues. When she turned to take the blackstaff, Lareal, zanalor and statues started smoldering in blue flame. Peter also had a dream, where his Celestial warned him of that darkening line between good and evil and (fixing his character sheet) giving him the restoration spell with his level. As the Celestial’s voice fades, it posits one question. “What do angels and devils agree on?...”

The next morning Malsanos heard a brief battle outside and the party saw the fleeing form of the Headmaster as Halaster running down the hall and using his gleaming sword to make some kind of rapid planar exit and saying something about “Tomas” as he leaves. Zanalor also spied a small blood trail in the spellcasting room and founds the bodies of the tiefling twins (they’d been coming to find you for reasons that will forever remain a mystery). At that time, the headmaster in different robes with small stains of blood appeared from a different hall, raising all manner of questions. When told there was another Halaster seen, he seems surprised and vowed to investigate but reminds the party that they have urgent work below. Pessius was mad at the headmaster allowing such carnage to befall children (causing the headmaster to look at her puzzled, as it’s been clear since day 1 that children are never safe in the Academy and murder is, in fact, expected). The party waited while Pessius took the girls to their room and lay them carefully to their rest, taking their list of favorite songs and vowing to learn them. Holding Turbulence, admitting that she envied them a little. “Short term suffering may be better than long term discrimination” Changing their names to Peace and Serenity.

The Spear soon returned to the flesh dungeon and makes a beeline for the grotesque altar, failing to discern anything from the carved symbols around its base or the northern chambers and instead opting to dive down the flesh stairs, the walls and floors now devoid of anything stone or structural and instead resembling the innards of some horrendous creature. Zanalor pushed through muscle into a chamber with a hue pusling heart. But his movements had been noticed, and as the large form of Akasha and her odd bloody dragon-like spouts formed, he unleashed his eldritch blasts. Nuitt was able to enter the chamber before Akasha put up a wall of force, but Pessius was able to step through it with a misty step. Though Peter was blocked, he summoned his fiend using the same rules (a point he can see) and the H was O. Giant fists, siphoning lair and legendary actions, took the party to the brink. What was a brief exchange asking for her help was met with scorn (as the party had attacked “her children” and not found other clues above that might have made her more receptive, but then again she’s pretty flat out evil…) Giant fists, spells and counterspells. Zanalor fell to a Power Word Kill, and Akasha ate a spell from Pessius, saving her counterspell to stop Peter from revifying Zanalor’s body. She seemed intent on feeding off his body, ripping his eye from him before Nuitt severed that siphon. With Nuitt still clinging to the invisible Akasha, she was finally brought low. As her body seemd to be reabsorbed into the inert heart, Nuitt grabbed the (evil) robes of the archmagi and Pessius nabbed the horned ring that circumvents the limitations on planar magic of undermountain.

The voice of Jhessira flared again from a rune at the base, saying that there is no time now. Akasha is gone and cannot help or hinder. Only one, maybe the strongest of them. “The Amber Temple. Zarovich. The binds are weaker… Maybe they will help the saviors of Barovia. Enter, and become what you must…." With her living spells and magic, she forms the hollowed heart into a gruesome conveyance, asking the Spear to return to that dead land and find the power they’ll need to defeat Halaster.

Even with her planar travel restored (once Pessius attunes to the ring), Pessius had no way of knowing where to find the mage. They debated returning to the tavern, going to Blackstaff or the Academy to see what else they could learn. Perhaps splitting the party to send a warning. But in the end they all climb into the fleshboat and were pulled down into the gore, into the darkness, their hope and breath choked from them until they openned their eyes to find themselves coming up through the cold ground at the foot of MOUNT GHAKIS in Barovia, the steps of the Amber Temple just a few minutes to the south and the town of Vallaki a day or two to the north. They needed more diamonds if they would revify again but the Disciple Jhessirya (who keeps spelling her name differently) also impresses on them that time is now gone. The final movements are now upon all. Oh, and Pessius decided to remove her panties to make an eyepatch for Zanalor after giving him her ring of regeneration.

Meanwhile, the Wizlards looked after Lleyash in the city above as the Delvers started poking around Shadowdusk Hold, following the thinnest of clues left on the scrap of paper from Manshoon’s tower. Esvele found some novel poisons that Malsanos uses on his bullets while also poisoning and then curing herself. Ysara finally got to use Gust of Wind to keep the party from choking on noxious vapors from poisoned pools but we missed the DC25 glinting of the amulet at the bottom of one of them :) That’s okay, since the party soon finds the Shadowdusk Treasure room, but not before setting off the arcane alarms and the thief getting paralyzed. Two large demons Turkeybutt and Cheese arrived in respose but the big bear, the cleric, the gunslinger and the swashbuckler dispatched them. Ysara found the piles of treasure suspicous, but couldn’t stop Esvele and Malsanos from grabbing some of the coins, getting cursed (25% to attack nearest creature and, for Malsanos, a curse that the first person he’s introduced to will hate him uncontrollably).

Sumfun and Ysara found a secret treasure room in the north, and, after removing a trap, Ysara recognized the symbols of Shar on a black chest in the room. Esvele wanted to leave the chest, but Ysara is now in the other role, certain that this must be the treasure. Sumfun encouraged her and she openned the chest to find a simple note (‘The Treasure Was Inside You The Whole Time’) written by one of the Shadowdusk sisters, and felt something bulking now lodged in her stomach. Sumfun doublechecks the chest, finding the secret bottom with the Journal of Arandraya (more lore dump about some trip Halaster took to the Hells at the request of Silverhand etc etc) oh and a magic pistol Thunderbuss (that she got as a gift from the drow). The party wanted to take a long rest but that was still a few hours away.

The party made an odd visit to the Lower Shadowdusk Crypts which involved a headless little boy and the ghost of one of the matriarch’s possessing Esvele when she entered the coffin to steal her book. It was Ysara who noticed something odd in the thief as she was eager to press on but not able to open a simple lock (the ghost forced three checks all of which were fails or botches). When asked what her last name was, the ghost fled the body and was much more than a ghost but no match for the combined awesomeness of the Delvers. The group then explored some upper crypts, finding a small side altar to Shar and a few larger coffins including a wand of Tasha’s Hideous Laughter, but elected to cut their losses and return to explore the central portcullis and the main level below. Almost falling into the pit trap with some kind of beefy maw demon and paralyzing spikes, Esvele helps the part avoid the peril by lodging her rope in the ceiling with her flight and ghostly form. They find a sadists chamber (where they were supposed to run into Acamar but the DM missed that in the description) and Ysara picked up another magic cloak (Cloak of Enlargement, yet to be identified).

South of the creepy sadists chamber, the torture chamber of the Shadowdusks held a drow elf almost entirely entombed in the wall. As Sumfun began removing the mortar that held him captive, the orphan prisoner looked hopefully at the party, but when Malsanos introduced himself, the expression turned to one of hate in one of the best random results of a curse the DM could not have planned better. Despite his own history as a drow orphan and captive, and especially after this drow claimed to have heard of Malsanos from ‘Snails’ who Malsanos knew from his own captivity, the gunslinger just couldn’t reach past the uncontrollable hatred caused by his curse. As the party healed the captive and eventually freed him after Sumfun found and dispelled a necromatic glyph that was draining him, he was given a choice and fled but not before sending one last recrimination towards Malsanos for forgetting his own kind.

The group found empty prison cells and an office detailing a slave trade from Underdark to fuel dark rituals or the evil patrons in the city above. And more lore of course, so don’t miss that riveting page. A Shadowdusk bedroom led the party to discover a wardrobe with a letter from Gemma in the academy above, some Far Plane themed tchotckes, a book on Mystra’s Bargain (More Lore? I know, what did you do to deserve such riches) and an odd spider figurine. While Sumfun and Ysara read about Mystra’s Bargain (Halaster went to Hell to retrieve Eliminster and had his insanity partially cured and put onto Asmodeus? That sounds important!), Esvele read the Undercommon inscription on the spider as Malsanos held it in his hand, and the fangs of the spider took his blood and forged a connection to MocGeiver. Malsanos admitted to needing direction, and MocGeiver said he’s be right there…. Somehow. Maybe through the nearby stairs we didn’t explore.

The Delvers looked into a few more creepy empty orphan prison cells including one with a game on a wall that Malsanos and Snails used to play, and some storage rooms and a few more halls. While the couldn’t find anything in the ossuary bones, Sumfun was adamant about searching the prisons stores after Ysara and found a wicked curved Scimitar (Fools Blade) that he reluctantly released to Esvele in return for the ring purloined from the Fellowship some days back.

At this point, the DM should have said they could long rest but didn’t and no one asked and we were all getting off our game. But it magically happened anyway after, in some alternate reality, they were taken to the Shadowfell and picked a fight with a Disciple general of the demon hordes.

After long rest and new powers, the Delvers followed MocGeiver and the other drow through a false wall, down long tunnels where demond and devils had been warring in some odd siege, and soone came out to an expanse where the joyless vista of the Shadowfell stretched before them. In the distance, an unnatrual tempest of blue fire, with lightning that seems to arc up into the swirly clouds. In tbetween, hills and forsest of the valley dotted with armies of demons fighting devils, some that soared through the colorless sky. In the valley floor, a somewhat familiar village in this realm of Letherna, and on the mountain nearby the Palace of Memory where they had once held audience with the Raven Queen herself.
MocGeiver gestured as if to show a terrible furture. “This is what’s at stake. This will be unleashed on the world above if we don’t stop the mage.” He explained that he cannot lead the Bregan D’earthe as too many would not follow him. He’s not the blood. Only Malsanos can take those reins and help lead them as they must, free of the shackles of Lloth and the politicis of the sword coast.

Meanwhile, as Sumfun struggled with his now blue flame beard and the unnatural storm on the horizon, Ysara did her usual small talk with the other drow, neither of them fond of the other. After pushing him too far, he wheeled on her, showing himself a general of the demon hordes below. Unimpressed, she picked the fight with a Disciple general of the demon hordes and the stronger party bent time, took their rest, then kicked ass.

At one point during the fight a celestial and fiend were summoned to try to help the party withstand the powerful spells and strong swings of the Disciple’s sword (not to mention the demon mount that bore the heads of his recent victims including that of the druid Willow). Esvele tried to fly and occupy attention, but things were looking bleak until Malsanos and then Esvele remembered their potions of wild magic. They were able to unleash devastation at the Disciple. However, then Malsanos other curse overpowered him, and he slowly raised his pepperbox to take point blank aim at MocGeiver next to him. He pulled off a shot, causing the drow to wheel on him and use a shadowy sword to cut him down, kneeling next to his unconscious form and delivering the “chosen one” speech, defeated.

After defeating the disciple Styv, Ysara sent mass healing to all including MocGeiver. He seemed to take this as a sign to stand down, and the party was left on the hilltop of the Shadowfell, odd rocks seeming fall around them from above.