Session Notes: Underdark Adventures

### Session 6

The party travels through the underdark following their guide, Sarith, as he leads them through the maze of tunnels, chimneys, and tight squeezes. Xael quickly loses his food and water supplies, but with no pressure to be hasty, Tazlynn and Eldeth are able to gather supplies as they travel. The walls for the first five days glow with a slowly pulsing red hue.

After four days, they reach a small cavern filled with a variety of mushrooms; fire lichen, barrelstalk, torchstalk, and nightlight. With barrelstalk and fire lichen available, the party gathers many days worth of food and water. As they camp for the night, they are attacked by a band of goblin slaves, though they make quick work of them.

The next day, they run across some ruins underground. Xael decides to taste the ruins, finding them slightly wet from his saliva. Uraelle searches through the ruins, coming across a few unusual artifacts; A bronze pentacle, a silver badge, a book telling tale of a fallen hero, and a sketch of a mechanical device. After searching the ruins, for a few minutes after, Uraelle can’t help but be impressionable. As the party passes through the ruins, Uraelle gains an odd fixation to the bronze pentacle, believing it to be a lucky charm, that passes in a few hours.

Two days afterward, they encounter a voice speaking within their minds. It warns them of the faerzress, the glowing red walls, and its effects from being exposed for too long, as well as the presence of demons within the underdark, before leaving with a final mention to contact the Society of Brilliance if they require assistance.

As they get closer to their first destination of Sloobludop, the party spots a pack of escaped goblin slaves and attack before they see the party, making short work of them. A day later, they are assaulted by a band of kuo-toa that attack without prejudice. After the fight is finished, Xael cooks up a kuo-toa while they rest, and another band approaches, though this one is lead by Ploopploopeen, Archpriest of Bilbdoolpoolp the Sea Mother, who tells the party of the problems at Sloobludop, asking for help.

Leading them to his abode, he recounts his plan to offer the party as a “sacrifice” before turning on his daughter, Bloppblippodd and overthrowing the new god Leemooggoogoon the Deep Father, and offers to pay them handsomely in coin, pearls, and fish intestines. The party accepts and takes a day to prepare for the event.

Ploopploopeen leads the party to the altar to the Deep Father, and feints interest in joining their worshipers. At the top of the dais, as the party is about to be sacrificed, Ploopploopeen attacks his daughter and a fight breaks out between the kuo-toa. Topsy and Turvy are slain in the coup, and as Bloppblippodd dies, a disturbance can be seen off of the water, as the Demon Lord Demogorgon rises from the Darklake's depths. The kuo-toa stop their fighting, and begin prostrating, chanting in unison the name of their new god.

The party, seeing fit to flee, head to the boats, but Tazlynn is fixated and in awe of the appearance of the Demon Lord, and cannot move on her own. Uraelle returns for Tazlynn and carries her to the boats, where they row away, watching Demogorgon laying waste to the city of Sloobludop. The kuo-toa guides within the boats eventually snap to their senses, and helps guide the party across the Darklake towards Neverlight Grove.

### Session 7

After escaping Demogorgon, the party travels across the Darklake in two boats. On their first day of travel, they encounter an aquatic troll swimming among some submerged stalagmites. One of the boats runs upon the rocks, but stays afloat, and the troll is quickly dealt with, a leg left as a trophy. A few days later, a traveling kuo-toa is encountered, whom Xael trades the trolls leg for a fish-hook knife carved from a large fish bone.

The party travels along the waters for a few more days before they run into a suddenly low ceiling. While attempting to navigate from the area, they are beset by a group of marrow attempting to flip the boats. The party thwarts their plans, surviving the attack and continue on their way.

### Session 8

The following day, darkmantles descend from the ceiling as the party is sucked towards a whirlpool. The party quickly dispatches the conical tentacled creatures, and the boat containing Tazlynn, Uraelle, and Eldeth bypasses the whirlpool without any issues. Xael, Andr'el, and Sarith are not as fortunate, unable to push themselves away. Giving it some thought, a plan is formed, and the three steer the boat further into they eye, nearly capsizing before rocketing out of the whirlpool. Andr'el attempts to cook some darkmantle meat, though it turns rubbery in texture, while Uraelle pulls one of the eyes for later sale as an alchemical agent.

After a few days rest, a grouping of ixitxachitl approach the boat. The manta-ray shaped beings attempt to eat the underside of the hull, when Xael captures one on a hook. Using telepathy, he attempts to instruct the beings to pull their boats, but is met only with images of the creatures rending the parties flesh deep underwater. Xael responds by furiously stabbing the creature, and is met with visions of Demogorgon in all his glory. In fear of the demon lord hiding in the shadows, and not wanting to face such horrors, Xael then proceeds to blind himself by casting light upon his own eyes. Cowering in the prow of the boat, he placed out his hand seeking assurance that all would be alright, to be met with the slimy flipper-hand of their boats guide to comfort him.

Two days later, Xael recovering from the temporary blindness, a swarm of quippers appears. Uraelle casts a few sleep spells on the sharp-toothed fish, capturing them to restore their rations. Days later, Xael's sight has recovered, and he trades the cooked darkmantle for a pair of nets and a dead quipper. Four days from then, the party reaches the coast nearest Neverlight Grove and begin traveling across land, saying goodbye to their porters, Xael stealing and tossing a fish scale charm from his friend.

The second day after again traveling by foot, the party encounters a gas spore filling the pathway. Circumnavigation could take days, so they send Andr'el to investigate. Finding no easy way around it, he backs up to fire off an attack at it, bursting it from within. Both Andr'el and Sarith, their guide, fall into a fevered dream state memories of a beholder chasing svirneblin, deep gnomes, through tunnels after they had stolen some of its gems. Realizing the danger their poisoned comrades have entered, the remaining members quickly fashion some needles and tubing from fish bones and intestines, and set up a filter system to purge the blood of the deadly toxin.

### Session 9

Recovering from the encounter with gas spore, the party continues, gathering food and water along the way. During one excursion, they come across a shelter placed in a nook to the side. Andr'el heads further down the cavern, scouting for the owner, while the remaining party gathers some water. Andr'el is then surprised by a dirty dwarf wearing threadbare clothing and holding a dagger at Andrel's back. Xael, hearing a squeak from down the tunnel, goes to investigate, seeing a dwarf, attempting to sneak up and failing, the dwarf turns around, shoves Andr'el behind himself to protect them, then hurls a dagger at Xael, missing by a wide margin. Andrel then presses his hand to the dwarfs head, threatening to blow him up if he moves. A conversation between the three ensues, the dwarf being an escaped prisoner from Menzoberrenzen, and seeking a way to the surface. Xael reveals himself as an outcast, also seeking the surface, and an alliance forms with Fenegir Stonehaft.

The party continues on their way to Neverlight Grove, and enter a wide cavern encountering a demon on a ledge, a Vrock. the Vrock cackles and swoops down upon the party, shrieking and stunning a few, then flapping its wings, releasing poisonous spores into the air surrounding it. The party survives the encounter, gathering some of the creatures smoldering ashes as it burns away upon its death.

A few days later, the party turns a corner and views a glowing cavern covered in fungus in a variety of colors, Neverlight Grove. Traveling down a path towards a pool of water at the center, they are approached by a large fungal creature that releases a burst of spores, revealing themselves as Sovereign Phylo. Phylo speaks of a coming event, a great marvelous celebration and a day of joy, when Sovereign Basidia approaches, offering to give them a tour of Neverlight Grove, and revealing their Circle had arrived a few years ago and joined with Phylo's Circle, but they have been behaving strangely lately, limiting access to Yggmorgus and no longer merging as a whole. Basidia asks the party to investigate the tower. As they pass by a forest of mushrooms, they are approached by Loobamub, showing them the slope up to the Circle of Explorers, and mentioning a grick and a shambling mound that have been plaguing them recently, and requests the corpses be returned to them. The party goes up the slope, but are stopped by Rasharoo, saying they'll show the party how to reach Yggmorgus once they return with Basidia. Heading back down the slope, they head into the mushroom forest, and slay an alpha grick, hauling it back to Loobamub to turn into a spore servant. The party takes a moment to rest, and is approached again by Basidia giving them each a *potion of greater healing* within a hollowed out mushroom gourd.

### Session 10

After resting, the party approaches Basidia and has them lead the party to Rasharoo so they can gain access to the upper tiers. While traveling the upper tiers, the party reaches the a clearing among the fungal growth, littered with corpses, some still breathing. The meet a drow, asking for the party to kill her, warning them of Zuggtmoy, one of the greater demons. At this point Yestabrod appears, a former miconid, but now appearing to be some form of fungal larva that speaks to the party with plans to add them to the pile. During the battle Sarith grips his head in pain as it splits open, turning into a spore servant. After defeating Yestabrod, the party takes a short rest before chanting is heard. A gathering of humanoid shaped plant creatures, bridesmaids and chamberlains of Zuggtmoy, approach the mound while the party hides in the nearby fungal canopy. The party witnesses what appears to be a wedding rehersal, with the puppeted corpse of Yestabrod acting as the priest. A vision appears to the party of Zuggtmoy within the chambers of Yggmorgus, reparing for some type of ceremonial joining with Araumycos, a massive colony of fungus living in a large section of the underdark. Andr'el weeps in a combination of fear and happiness at the spectacle, unable to stop for some time.

After witnessing the event, the party decides to head downwards, towards Yggmorgus, while Fenegir and and Eldeth remain behind, traveling to inform Basidia of the events that have occurred. While traveling down the slope, the party comes across a variety of horrors, from the terrain leaking a spongy ooze, to creatures being birthed from bursting pustules. As they get closer, the chanting grows louder, to a deafening chorus of groans and burbles as an array of creatures are seen dancing as if their bones are melting, vomiting slime and roaring in mock merriment. The party joins in.

Some time later, Uraelle and Xael awaken from their dancing stupor, and again approach the entrance to Yggmorgus, dragging their companions with them. Opening the doors wide, Zuggtmoy is seen before them, instantly driving them mad. Xael having an itch that can never be gotten rid of, Uraelle slowly loosing her intelligence, unable to remember things, but having flashes of insight. Tazlynn finds herself staring off into space for long stretches of time, and Andr'el witnesses the shifting between the material and the plane of shadow, unable to discern the difference between the two at times. The party retreats back up the slope with dancing companions in tow. Fenegir tells the party Basidia and those loyal to them have retreated, though he now knows of which passage to take to the surface and leads the party away.

### Session 11

After a few days of travel, the dancing stops and the party reaches the surface with winter in full swing. Xael recognizes their location and heads north west towards the Diamond Throne, with plans to have Eldeth reach Daramir to warn the king. After a few days of travel, a blizzard is fast approaching. The party takes residence in the storm shelter of a ruined house, Uraelle wandering off to discover a nest of ghouls. The party summarily defeats them before awaiting the end of the storm and digging themselves out. Traveling further north west, they reach the outer gates of Eastguard, within the Barony of Easthold.