Session 6

## Twirling Towards Freedom

We pick up immediately where we left off on the afternoon of 16 Kythorn and continue to the events of the following morning, 17 Kythorn.

Themberchaud, it turns out, does not actually want to eat surfacers but was in fact joking. Instead, he insists that the party talks to him before speaking with Gartokkar, over Gartokkar’s mild protestations. The party follows Themberchaud into his garishly decorated cavern where the dragon sits on his pile of treasure and asks the party members to introduce themselves, which they do.

Themberchaud then tells the Young Adventurers that he has decided that they will be his agents. He directs them to do whatever Gartokkar wants, but to report directly back to him instead of the Keepers of the Flame. He is suspicious that Gartokkar is keeping secrets from him, though he doesn’t know about what. When Ralkor asks what, exactly, the party will get out of this deal Themberchaud seems incredulous. “You will have the patronage of the most powerful being in Gracklstugh--no, the Underdark!” Satisfied that the party is now happily working for him he sends them back to Gartokkar.

Gartokkar asks what Themberchaud wanted but the party assures him the dragon was just curious about the outsiders in his city. Satisfied with that reply, Gartokkar informs the party that the Keepers of the Flame have been targeted by the Grey Ghosts. He wants the party to root out the thieves’ guild, or at least track them down to their lair. He believes that Droki can lead the party to them. In exchange he will exert his influence to have the Stone Guard leave the group alone. He supplies the party with badges allowing them to travel as far south as the Keepers’ headquarters. As promised, he then has a subordinate lead the party to Cairngorm Cavern to meet the Stonespeaker.

At the cavern the players speak with Stonekeeper Hgraam, who thanks them for sparing Rihuud. He believes the stone giants of Cairngorm Cavern are under attack by someone, but he does not know who. He also seems to recognize the party members, but then says “that meeting may not have happened yet,” and tells them that the stones cry out in pain, something has awakened in the Underdark. Sebastian thinks Hgraam is more trustworthy than the other locals they have been dealing with and tells him about seeing Demogorgon. This news worries Hgraam and he promises to speak to the king, but laments that the king has become suspicious and hard to talk to lately. Before they leave Hgraam gives Kaia the stonespeaker crystal to aid them in their quest.

The Young Adventurers make their way back to their inn, where they find the rest of the escaped prisoners hanging out in the common room. Stool excitedly tells them that it thinks it can sense its home, the Neverlight Grove, and gestures in the direction it thinks is correct. Stool is very much in favour of everybody just running away from Gracklstugh, forget about all this stuff the dwarves want them to do. Derendil is troubled when he finds out that the group got in a fight with a giant while he wasn’t around and thinks that he should go as well when the party heads back out in case there is more trouble. The Young Adventurers talk out their options and ultimately decide they need to find Droki and go from there. They head back out to the bazaar where Kaia and Nespip attempt to stealthily find and trail Droki, while Sebastian, Ralkor, and Derendil lounge nearby.

Luckily, Kaia quickly spots Droki leaving the market and alerts Nespip. They follow him out of the bazaar, then out of the Darklake District and towards Laduguer’s Furrow. Sebastian, Ralkor, and Derendil trail behind. Nespip, deciding that this has gone on long enough, casts command on Droki, telling him to halt. This should not have worked at all, but I guess Droki speaks common now for some reason. (DM note: speaking a language the target understands is required for command, which I forgot at the time.) Nespip was then able to run up to Droki and grapple him before Droki could react. Droki responded by stabbing Nespip with a poison blade several times, leading to Kaia to first punch Droki, then decide fuck it and start stabbing him back. All this is taking place out in the open in the middle of Gracklstugh, so of course guards appear, weapons drawn, to break up the fight.

As the guards try to take Kaia, Nespip, and Droki into custody Droki makes a break for it, shaking off an attempt by Kaia to grab him and dodging a javelin thrown by one of the guards. Two guards give chase, as do Sebastian, Ralkor, and Derendil, but Droki quickly outpaces them all. Kaia and Nespip, meanwhile, willingly accompany the remaining guard back to the Overlake Hold.

The guards stop chasing Droki at the entrance to the West Cleft District but the party members in pursuit follow him into the squalor that is the derro neighbourhood. Droki is a ways ahead of them but they see him duck into an alley behind some hovels. When they arrive, Droki is nowhere to be found. Sebastian searches the alley, noting a wisp of faerzress emanating from the furrow wall. Investigating, he finds a narrow fissure covered by grey tarps and refuse. It opens into a tunnel with no visible end, but the glow of faerzress is visible further down.

Sebastian suggests they gather their party before venturing forth, and they head back towards the inn. On the way out of the cleft they see a gathering of angry derro watching them and they decide to pick up the pace, making it out of derrotown without any bloodshed. Upon arrival back the Ghohlbrorn Lair they find Nespip and Kaia, who are all done being yelled at by Captain Blackskull.

The entire party has a spore conference, which has got to look weird to other people in the inn as they sit around staring at each other without (apparently) speaking. The group decides to check out the tunnel in derroville after getting some rest, planning to check it out very early in the morning. They put the first part of this plan into action immediately and go to bed early.

They following morning, around 4am they estimate, the Young Adventurers set out along with Prince Derendil. They head back to derroburg and manage to avoid drawing notice as they make their way to the hidden tunnel. Inside they follow the tunnel for several hundred feet as it widens and the ceiling rises overhead. The tunnels are suffused with faerzress and the walls covered in weird spiral shapes. At a fork the party goes left, finding a small room with a narrow crevice in the far wall surrounded by fungus. Nespip thinks he can fit down the tunnel while no one else can. He goes down, finding that it intersects a larger tunnel further on.

Nespip returns to the party and they backtrack, taking the right-hand route. There they are surprised to find Buppido, standing in a room covered in corpses placed in a spiral pattern. Buppido declares that he is, in fact, Diinkarazan. Sebastian recognizes the name as an obscure derro god but doesn’t know much about him. He attacks as two of the corpses spring to their feet with a swiftness that shows they are no ordinary zombies. Buppido displays powers the party had not previously seen, throwing arcane bolts of some kind and protecting himself with freezing magic shell. Nonetheless, the party quickly deals with Buppido and his two ghouls. Buppido insists he is a god and can’t be killed but Ralkor investigates and finds that isn’t true (i.e. he stabs and kills him).

In the next room the party finds three more ghouls and quickly dispatches them as well before finding the way forward blocked by a tunnel filled with various fungi. Kaia uses the stonespeaker crystal, which she definitely attuned to she swears, to open the passage. The party tries to interrogate the plants while they’re at it, but surprisingly, the mushrooms don’t know much of interest to the group. Actually, fungi aren’t plants, should this have worked at all? Some quick googling shows that D&D apparently considers mushrooms to be plants so scientific inaccuracy works in our heroes’ favour. Further into the mushroom grove the party is attacked by five swarms of insects (wouldn’t that just be one really big swarm?) but they clear the bugs out without much difficulty.

The Young Adventurers hang a left at a t-intersection, then right and right again. Sebastian is drawing a map but the DM has concerns about its accuracy. The group comes across another narrow crevice and Nespip is eager to explore by himself again for some reason. This crevice opens into a large room with a mesa in the middle. Strange whispers sound from the ceiling, which is too high and dark to see. On top of the mesa Nespip can see at least one figure and hears fighting. He creeps up the winding path to the top to see what’s going on.

At the top he see two duergar armed with those weird translucent swords fighting three derro. The whispers are louder at the top as well. He figures that the dwarves must be those assassins they’re looking for and attacks. His first blow is a critical hit and he stacks some divine smite on top, absolutely destroying the duergar. The second duergar decides to run but is shot dead by derro crossbows. The derro turn their crossbows on Nespip, shouting in a language he doesn’t understand. Nespip originally planned to talk to the derro but now realises his mistake. Instead he attacks, quickly killing the only derro in melee range, and turns and flees himself. Back with the party he is vague about what happened.

Continuing on the party sees what appears to be a brain with four legs standing guard outside a metal door set in the tunnel wall. A dwarven voice shouts out, demanding to know who they are and their business. Kaia claims that they wandered in just to explore but the unseen dwarf seems unconvinced. He tells the group they will need to talk to his boss or face attack. They agree to talk and are ushered through the door. There they meet a dwarf who says he is named Eldgrim. Kaia notices that Eldgrim’s shield has an eyeball at the centre of it which moves, looking over the group. The group reluctantly agrees to a truce with Eldgrim; they will leave each other alone and limit their search to the Grey Ghosts. Eldgrim offers them some advice--the Grey Ghosts operate to the north east and north west and a pool to the north contains a hydra. Ralkor decides at this point to exercise his veto and attacks Elgrim with a firebolt.

A fight, predictably, breaks out. Less predictably, a mind flayer enters the fight through a nearby door. Arrayed against the party are six duergar Empty-Scabbard Killers, a mind flayer, and the quadrupedal brain thing. The party takes some damage but ultimately clears out the enemy forces without losing anybody on their side. Nespip claims Eldgrim’s shortsword, which unlike the other assassins was not a translucent mind-blade. Exploring the rooms the group finds a brain in a vat of liquid along with several tadpole-like creatures in the room the mind flayer came out of. Sebastian is of the opinion that this mind flayer shit needs to go and the brain and tadpoles are all killed. Sebastian takes a dead tadpole in a vial as proof of what they found. Ralkor finds a workbench fairly well-stocked with alchemists supplies, taking some healing kits from it.

Further exploration shows a tunnel leading off on the far side of the main room and another door to the north which is locked. We end our session here, with our heroes talking about maybe taking a long rest. Tune in next time to see if they remember that they just woke up like an hour ago!