Session 318

# January 11th, 2024 - Audience with Azog

## Audience with Azog

The session began with the party exploring the dark elf ‘village’ in the cavern after their previous battle. It was clear all the buildings were ancient, overgrown with sediment from a time long past. They almost all had tons of spider webbing among and within, and most were empty of inhabitants. The party had watched many flee after their battle. However, one of the buildings appeared to be a small kitchen with two goblin captives chained and cowering. The two introduced themselves as Earstabber and Bootlicker, and their personalities easily matched their given names.

In talking with the goblins, the party learned that the goblins on this level and the one above all served a hobgoblin warlord named Azog. The goblin’s ‘camp’ was not far to the west, in a much larger cavern with similar ancient buildings. The goblins apparently had sights on capturing Skullport, but had not yet been able to commit to the assault due to the dark elves that continued to harass their rear. Bootlicker was supremely impressed that the party had killed all the dark elves and spiders in one go, and pledged himself to follow and cook them stew if they kept him safe. Earstabber was more eager to return to Azog with word of the defeat of the drow, clearly thinking he would receive some sort of award for doing nothing.

The party started considering how they could use this factional conflict to their advantage. They decided to take a long rest while casually exploring the rest of the buildings in the cavern. One was the home of the apparent leader, for it had a fancy wooden chest in the shape of a spider inset with nice red crystals. Inside, they found just over 750 gold worth of coins, and looted the rest of his home. They found an expensive looking black silk robe, a standard magic wand, and a wizard’s spellbook filled with a nice assortment of spells. However, none of the party were wizards who could copy them, but Watch examined it for rituals he could learn.

Finally, they found a locked building that opened with the key from the pockets of their captured dark elf leader. Inside, other than all the webbing the only item was a standing oval mirror decorated with spider shapes. The mirror was magical, with the face of a spider appearing amid smoke and talking in a language none understood. Watch cast a ritual to *comprehend languages* and determined the being was speaking Abyssal, the language of demons. It revealed itself as a yochlol, a twisted nature demon in the shape of a rotting tree. It seemed as if the demon couldn’t see them at first, asking why the dark elves hadn’t yet killed the goblins. Eventually, when the party were unable to answer in Abyssal it determined it was not speaking to the right entity, and caused the mirror to shatter.

After resting, the party tried to interrogate the dark elf captive, even having one *disguise-self* into the shape of the tree demon. But they couldn’t get anything of use out of him, and summarily executed the dark elf who clearly had no trouble murdering and enslaving goblins. The only other thing of interest in the village was a building that had a strange fish carving protruding along the cave wall. Before they left, Carlton found that the fish could be rotated, and after he pointed it downward towards a strange empty basin carved in the ground, water magically appeared and filled the basin. Inside was a glowing green fish that he successfully scooped out, after which it transformed into a small emerald - *a water elemental gem*.

The party decided to free the two goblins and allow Earstabber to lead them through the cave towards Azog’s encampment. It was not far at all, and the party passed by a guard post where hobgoblins were arguing about having let through a few dark elves down a staircase to the level below. They had killed most of the drow that charged their position attempting to flee from the party, with only a few getting past. The goblins would not pursue down to the next level of the Undermountain. Earstabber talked up the party, and they asked to be led to meet this Azog, offering they could help the goblins.

The goblin’s cavern was significantly larger than the one the dark elves had lived in, with dozens of crusted over ancient buildings. This cavern was however lit with firelight from dozens of torches and campfires all around. They were escorted near the rear of the cavern to one of the larger buildings that had hobgoblin guards outside. Within they found the hobgoblin leader Azog, who sat upon a small throne of skulls with numerous guards, and a pair of chained worgs. After hearing of the parties removal of his dark elf annoyance, Azog was very open to the party assisting in their assault of Skullport. The hobgoblin revealed they had worked tirelessly to dig tunnels into the rear of the town, adjacent to their cavern, and really just needed the party to cause a distraction at the front of the town.

The party naturally thought that it was the goblins that would make the distraction for them to take out the three leaders of the Skulls, and ‘traitor Joe’. After discussing the plan with Azog, they agreed to give the party two hours to sail the short trip down the river to the keep protecting the entrance to Skullport and to coordinate a meeting with the Skulls' leaders. Then, once the goblins started breaking through into the heart of the town and killing the denizens, the party could assassinate the gang leaders as their soldiers went to engage the goblins. The party made no mention of the beholder Xanathar and how his gang ultimately intended to come down and take control of the town. It seemed like everyone wanted to control this undertown of crime during this time of crisis.

And that is where the session ended, it was the early morning of the twenty first day since the party first left Black Landing.

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