Session XXX - Dandor and Viconia

After defeating the hypnotic insectoid brutes, the party exited the cave that their portal had brought them to, and emerged into the "open" of the Underdark. With few leads aside from knowing that Chezu'ul had come through the portal, they found themselves without many leads on how to pursue him through this labyrinth.

Alegard attempted to track footprints, but was thrown off by the gurgling streams. Zeela tried to scry on Chezu'ul, but without enough of a connection, having never met him, she was unable to. Tilly stood watch, and while the party attempted various means of finding their way, saw a strange creature approach with 3 arms and 3 legs, a mouth on top of its head, and a single eye on its front. Speaking a language similar to the primordial languages spoken by seemingly half the party, it indicated it was looking for a meal. Its frustration grew with the various attempts to give it actual food, but it was appeased with gifts of precious metals, which it munched on contentedly enough.

An awkward negotiation followed where the creature attempted to communicate what it truly wanted to eat in exchange for a guide through the underdark and to the "dark ones", and the party was unable to figure out exactly what it wanted until Tilly produced a pearl. Saga conjured up a massive diamond, and the creature, now satisfied, identified itself as Xorn, a Xorn.

Saga went into her book to recover from spellcasting while the party trudged onwards, and Zeela nearly ripped a hole in the fabric of reality by attempting to put the extraplanar space of the book inside the extraplanar space of the Bag of Holding.

Xorn led the party along the pathways known only to the Drow, and eventually to a series of graven tunnels of spider iconography. Eventually these tunnels opened to a large cave, where a female Drow was waiting for them. She called out Kassodar's disguise immediately, and introduced herself as Viconia, before laying into his inferiority as a half-breed surface dweller. She informed him that Chasbal, his father, had been the eldest son of house Vandree, a great house of Menzoberranzan, and that he had fled to the surface, abandoning his life there, and taking with him his infant brother, Dandor, third son of house Vandree, to raise as a brother. Viconia said that Chezu'ul lay beyond, in consultation with The Queen, which the party soon discovered meant The Spider Queen Lolth herself when they dared to insinuate this Queen may not be right.

Viconia called up Dandor, now a Drider, to show Kassodar what happens to Drow who displease the Spider Queen. Kassodar defended his honour against Viconia's jealous insults, and she flew into a rage and attacked with her Driders, calling on Dandor to redeem himself with his nephew's blood. Kassodar realized she was part of what Chasbal had left behind when he fled the underdark.

The battle raged on with vicious exchanges of damage from each side, with Saga teleporting the frontline of Alegard, Papa, and Randgar behind Viconia as she attempted to cast spells from behind her wall of Driders. Sensing her incoming doom, she cursed Kassodar to the abyss with her, and cast a spell that left him gravely weakened, before three arrows from Dandor struck him down..