Session 43: Battletoads

After they rest, Vojta casts dispel magic on everyone as a precaution, and Nan casts it on him. For all, there is a feeling that something has been dispelled, but they can tell no difference. Nan sends her pseudodragon familiar to investigate the passage with the cocoons. The holes in the walls are too dark to see into, even with its darkvision. Something inside the cocoons is pulsing. Suddenly, Nan’s vision goes black as the familiar is seemingly killed. The group cautiously approaches. Cho carefully cuts open a cocoon, causing a large lobster-clawed crustaceans to emerge. The other three cocoons then erupt, revealing three more chuul, before all four advance to attack.

Arran interrupts the first chuul with a barrage of rapier thrusts while Vojta magically drains the haemolymph from its punctured shell. As it staggers, Cho follows up and cleaves off its insectoid head. Behind the frontline, Nan flies into the air and suppresses the next chuul with a hail of eldritch blasts. Behind the group of chuul, the stone wall collapses, revealing a hidden chamber and a large frog-like humanoid. The green slaad conjures a fiery explosion at the party, but they hunker down and avoid the worst of it. However, their battle formation is broken when a hulking blue slaad emerges from a tunnel behind them, climbs up the side of the cavern wall and slashes Nan with its claws. Grombrin runs up the wall with his boots of spider climbing and bashes the blue slaad with both his metal and ethereal hammers. Vojta summons Trojka to heal Nan’s injuries, but the slaad’s diseased claws have rendered her unsusceptible to healing magic. Cornered, Nan blights the blue slaad, draining blood from its body. The monster retaliates and knocks her out of the air. Vojta turns into an earth elemental and starts punching at the slaad from below. It fights back with its claws, but Vojta’s stone body is immune to its disease.

Arran and Cho continue to fight off the attacking chuul, until the green slaad casts a fear spell on them. They both flee in a panic, with Arran running back to the central cave, while Cho is caught in a chuul’s pincer as soon as he drops his guard. Grombrin casts a calming spell to reverse the effect, but one of the chuul stabs its toxic face tentacles under his helmet, paralysing him and breaking the spell. From the back, Vojta sends Trojka to heal the bloodied Cho, but the green slaad promptly dispels the healing spirit. Unable to fight effectively, Cho is also paralysed by the chuul. Arran, recovered from his panic, charges back in and plunges his rapier down into the neck of one of the chuul, killing it. The blue slaad then turns away from Vojta and attacks the easier targets, Arran and Grombrin. Arran wards it off with his arcane shield, while Grombrin is injured but burns away the infection. Vojta continues punching the blue slaad in the back, frustrated that its injuries are regenerating, and accidentally kicks Nan’s unconscious body across the room.

The green slaad casts another fear spell, causing Arran and Cho, just recovered from his paralysis, to flee back once again to the central cave. Grombrin attempts another calming spell, but is disrupted by the two remaining chuul. One of its attacks deflects off his armour just right and strikes the blue slaad, latching on by pure instinct. Vojta takes the opportunity to pummel the distracted slaad, then grabs it by the legs and repeatedly smashes it against the ground, splattering its blue blood around and killing it. As Grombrin and Vojta hammer at the remaining chuul, Cho charges back into the fight and cleanly decapitates both of the monstrous crustaceans. The green slaad teleports away.

Vojta turns human and revives Nan. She starts breathing again but doesn’t wake up, although the spell usually restores consciousness. Vojta tries purging her of disease, and is then able to heal her back to consciousness. He apologizes profusely for kicking her body, but she forgives him on the condition that they cover the cost of buying a new ring from Faranehou, which they do. Cho finds another key in the chamber the green slaad emerged from. They put it into the slot and the image of Saralya becomes more complete. Worn out, they then rest in the centre of the cavern.

Once rested, Vojta notices that the two keys are gone from the column. He asks the others but no one took them out, and the ones on watch saw nothing. They go back to the passage, where the corpse of the blue slaad is missing. Cho suggests that Arran inspect the walls of the chamber the green slaad came from. He notices a draft emerging from a crack. Grombrin observes that this is an artificial wall crafted to look natural. Cho pushes against the wall, and the sound of a mechanism breaking is heard as he forces it open. Beyond is a hidden room containing the green slaad and a red slaad. The corpse of the blue one is lying on a ring of runes carved into the floor.

The green slaad casts a fear spell on the group, but Grombrin conjures an aura of protection that wards it off. The red one blocks the way, but Arran, Cho, and Grombrin crowd around the entrance to barrage it with attacks. It buckles almost immediately and Cho decapitates it. Everyone except Vojta crowds into the room, and through the entrance Vojta glimpses a chaotic brawl, then a fiery explosion, then Cho fleeing out of the hidden chamber, affected by a fear spell. Arran then calls that the slaad teleported away, though Cho is too far away to hear and continues fleeing to the far end of the cavern. Inside, Arran finds the two key shards on a table, burning due to the slaad’s spell. He douses them in water and puts them into his bag of holding. Just when they think it’s over, the corpse on the pentagram starts quivering, then bursts apart as a creature of black sludge emerges from it.