Chapter 11: Coppermine

## Saturday, August 18, 2351

### Session 76 (cont)

While Tamir goes to see what help the Five can offer in helping the party reach Coppermine more quickly, Seth's allies ask her what they'll need to do to prepare. A list of requested supplies is prepared, and given to the Five, with some items given freely, while others are offered on loan, or with the expectation of eventual repayment (Goggles of Night for Alja and a set of plate armour for Rorrik, for instance). Ini arrives with some of their belongings, including Samsok's beloved Dolby and Seth's Dust of Disappearance, and a fair amount of their gold to help with the resupplying.

Seth explains that getting to Coppermine will be difficult, not least because the Five has maps of the general geographical area, but not of the Underdark itself, and it has been nearly a decade since she and her twin made the journey to the surface. They don't like visitors in general, she explains, but there's a crisis, so they should be willing to let them all enter, though the logistics of getting some of their party members through the smaller tunnels will be... interesting. It's agreed that Fiona will use her Polymorph spell to turn Samsok into an owl, to help smooth his passage.

## Sunday, August 19, 2351-Monday, August 20, 2351

### Session 77

Supplies are gathered and plans are made. Magical passage is secured for the group, with the expectation that from the drop point they should only have to travel five or so days to reach Coppermine.

## Tuesday, August 21, 2351-Sunday, August 26, 2351

### Session 77 (cont)

The party arrives in Jackson Hole, a magocracy run by warlocks. There, they find themselves in the living room of a tiefling woman who encourages them to be on their way, assuring them she has no need to know what their business is. Sneaking out of the city, they begin their journey to Coppermine. This first day of travel passes largely without incident, the party chatting as they go, getting to know their less familiar companions as they press on. Fiona demonstrates her extremely useful ability to provide them with some extra magical cover at night, provided everyone's cool with some FDM ASMR while they sleep.

On their second night of travel, they encounter a strange beast in the night, fighting a brief battle with it but coming away largely unscathed.

The further they travel, the fewer fellow travellers they see any sign of, though they do encounter a nice lesbian couple and their children hiking at one point. Less fun, they encounter a new form of troll, which they don't like much more than the other trolls they've met. They battle a strange winged, dragon-like feline creature that utterly fails to hit Rorrik.

### Session 78

They also, when Alja's navigation proves efficient but not entirely safe, find themselves facing off with a hydra, though that encounter goes rather better than the last hydra fight most of them saw.

As they continue to travel and find themselves not making quite the time they'd hoped to, Seth sends a message to her twin, and is not particularly reassured to receive no reply. Reaching out to Earl, she receives an even less reassuring message not to even worry about it because everything is definitely fine. While Seth worries about her missing companion, Samsok gains a new one: a pygmy kipine, like the one Tamir has but even smaller, who he dubs Womak. The creature takes up residence in Samsok's fur, and just in time, too, as it helps bolster his confidence that going into the Underdark isn't a *totally* insane, suicidal plan (just mostly, probably).

## Monday, August 27, 2351

### Session 78 (cont)

The party begins their descent into Coppermine, though it takes some convincing to persuade Samsok not to wait up by the entrance alone. Almost immediately, they run into trouble, fighting a jelly that badly hurts Ini, though the rest of the party is largely unscathed by the time it's destroyed.

### Session 79

The rest of the day's travel is frustrating, as time and time again they rely on Seth's (admittedly meticulous) notes of her journey to the surface, only to learn a passage she relied on is now a dead end. For every shortcut they find, they seem to run into two more passages to nowhere, and though Seth reaches out to one of her fathers, Sheirta, a former trader, he's unable to offer significant help with no idea of where precisely they are. Eventually, the party agrees to make camp for the night and hope nothing attacks them.

## Tuesday, August 28, 2351

### Session 79 (cont)

The night passes uneventfully, and the party continues their descent into the Underdark. Though they encounter a group of myconids who Fiona manages to speak with, and a group of kobolds they'd previously encountered, one of whom is *positive* he could take the party on, they run into little by the way of trouble, and with guidance from the myconids, they find Coppermine with time to spare, though much of that time is taken up by Seth trying to remember which boulder in the circuitous maze of passageways obscuring entrance to the gnomish city is an entrance boulder.

Locating one, finally, Seth knocks and finds herself face to face with one of her exes, a town guard named Sanan. Sanan takes Seth aside and gives her the news she'd already deduced: Deckhun and their companions arrived before her, and her twin ran into trouble almost immediately, getting killed on their first day there. Their companions, she's told, are hiding out somewhere near the city, as one of them is too large to enter, and Deckhun's body is resting in the town's temple, as they're waiting for the arrival of the twins' fathers to attempt a resurrection.

With Samsok turned into an owl, the party heads into Coppermine, going to the second level of the town to see the body in the temple. Seth stays there for some time, and it's agreed that Ini will go up to look into accommodation and hand out some of the supplies she brought. Samsok, an owl, has a grand old time hunting mice, and resists the urge to peck at Deckhun's dead body.

While in the temple, Seth sees another familiar face: Kethren, her biological father, comes by, having heard she'd arrived. An awkward conversation and a tight hug are had before he departs again, offering to talk more to the party about his notes on what's transpired in the town when they're ready.

When Ini returns with news that she's found a tavern where they can stay — one where Seth's niece happens to work but... that's probably fine — they return to the upper level of the town, Fiona using a spell to reduce Samsok's size for the shorter period of time it takes to travel between levels. With Ini and Samsok setting up in the tavern, the rest of the party continues back up to the entry level to seek out Deckhun's companions, Muirgurn and Earl. While Muirgurn remains largely silent, seeming unwilling to so much as look at the party if she can avoid it, Earl explains that having heard of the issues the town was having, they set out to do some standard recon, but were ambushed by a group of duergar and troglodytes. Things escalated, as they sometimes do, and the best they could manage was escaping with Deck's body and their own lives.

Agreeing to talk more the following day, Earl assuring Seth that she'd continue to check in with her fathers to see when they'd be arriving, the two parties parted ways, with Earl and Muirgurn returning to the camouflage and cover of a Tiny Hut, while Seth and the others went down into Coppermine to try and rest for the night.

### Session 80

While in the tavern, Seth does her best to explain her family drama to her companions: how neither of her two fathers are her biological father, but one of them is her uncle, because the people she'd grown up thinking of as her aunt and uncle were in fact her birth parents; how by the time she found out about this her mother had already died; how in the ensuing arguments she and her twin decided to leave Coppermine, and did not necessarily leave on the best of terms with all their family members.

## Wednesday, August 29, 2351

### Session 80 (cont)

The following day, the party decides to go visit Seth's biological father Kethren, to see what he knows about the mysterious happenings in Coppermine. From him, they learn the following:

* Coppermine has been in a bit of a boom for the last couple of years, finding richer and richer mining deposits, including gems the likes of which they used to only find once a generation, and others which quite frankly have never been documented in this area or even on this *plane* before.
* In early June, a thoqqua appeared, taking out nine miners in the tunnel it turned up in before the tunnel was successfully collapsed on the creature.
	+ This was sort of weird, but not impossible; thoqquas aren't unheard of in the Underdark, though they're typically only found in the Lowerdark, as they prefer to travel through veins of magma.
	+ They are most commonly found, however, on the Elemental Plane of Fire, or the hotter regions of the Elemental Plane of Earth.
* Not long after that attack, there were some tremors in Coppermine, but nothing too damaging.
* The earthquake came in mid-July, and it took some time to reach the point where they could even start to send out calls for aid. The better part of Shaleshelf was destroyed, and Silverside saw a fair amount of damage as well. Goldgulf and Copperheart saw relatively minor damage by comparison — with the buildings farther apart there was less collateral damage if one of them fell — but the entirety of the town was affected between the disruption to mining, the many injuries and deaths, and the destruction of infrastructure and abrupt homelessness of a good chunk of the population.
* Before any of the calls for help they were later able to send out were answered, a group of pech happened by — they've been using their uncanny attunement to the earth to help repair the worst of the damage, and have remained to help rebuild. They claim to be from the Elemental Plane of Earth, with no knowledge as to how they ended up here.
	+ Initially 12 of them arrived, but only five are currently alive following later events.
* Just when things were starting to stabilize a bit, about twelve days ago, nine gray ooze appeared in Silverside, seemingly out of nowhere, and wreaked havoc on the town. 19 people were killed, including seven pech, before the oozes were put down.
* Some days after that — only a few days before the party arrived — a xorn appeared in Copperheart, but it seemed to have no interest in a fight. It scared the hell out of a lot of nobles before leaving through a solid wall, with no trace of its passage left behind.
* Through all of this, trouble was happening outside of town; miners began to go missing, as well as their guards, with no trace left behind of them save the occasional bit of blood or a sign of a struggle. With over 5% of the population already having been wiped out between the earthquake and the oozes, and with no traders arriving to Coppermine either, they stopped sending people outside the town walls. The economy is at a standstill, and though they have food stores enough to last them a couple of months with savvy rationing, and mushroom farming within the town, if something doesn't change it's unlikely Coppermine will survive.
* On August 20, six galeb duhr appeared, stationing themselves around Coppermine, spread out between the city's layers. No one has been able to learn where they came from or why they remain, but they have been seen by the town's entry guards occasionally fighting off threats that come too close to the town.
* On August 25, Deckhun arrived with their companions and sought to do some recon on what was hunting people outside the town; they ran afoul of a group of duergar and troglodytes, and Deck fell.
* One of Seth's older brothers, Kailwen, was injured in the earthquake, but had just about fully recovered from that when the oozes attacked. He was badly injured trying to fend the oozes off, and is still recovering from those injuries now, though expected to make a full recovery.
* Seth's sister-in-law, Nitin, was injured much more seriously in the earthquake, and has yet to wake up.

Armed with this information but not entirely sure what to do with it, the party decides to go outside the city to see if they can sense any portals, using the tricks Seth and Rorrik learned from Theodard Longhole so long ago. (Three months. It's been about three months since the search for the Ethereal Plane began.) While up there, they decide to check in with Earl and Muirgurn, the latter of whom seems unimpressed at the party's intention to go around looking for portals, asking who they should recruit for their resurrections in case of emergency.

Though the group meditates on portals, and though Samsok finds a mice to hunt and Alja thinks she feels something, nothing ultimately comes of the experiment — and, when Fiona drops her Polymorph spell on Samsok, they find themselves somewhat trapped outside Coppermine for the evening, if they want to keep their group together. So, Earl puts up her Tiny Hut, and everyone agrees to spend the night within it, settling in to get ruthlessly hustled by Ini at cards.

### Session 81

As the night wears on, the group gets to know Earl, at least, a little better — Samsok learns that Earl is about 300 years old, and Earl learns about the term "MILF." They learn that Earl was originally from the Forest of Mir in An, but spent some time living in and around the Sea of Fallen Stars studying the Alu'Tel'Quessir, or sea elves, before getting curious about Ki and heading this way. She met Muirgurn in Coeverden some time ago, the two of them introduced by a mutual friend, and found they got along well — Earl's good with people, but sometimes a little too guileless for her own good, while Muirgurn always has an eye out for trouble but is also very good at letting her sharp tongue get her into trouble.

The pair of them met Deck and, despite Muirgurn and Deckhun frequently clashing over the considerable gap between their perspectives — Muirgurn a dedicated cynic and Deckhun an idealist literally always ready to throw down — when Earl and Muirgurn sought to explore the coast a little more, Deck came with them.

Later that evening, the party takes turns taking watch, Earl volunteering to join Samsok and Alja's watch for no reason, don't even worry about it. Samsok and Alja get a two-hour crash course on the history of capitalism and how it compares to both present-day economic realities in An and Ki, as well as a brief summary of both the mythology of cowboy culture and gladiatorial combat, and retain very little of it, though Samsok at least enjoys how Earl says the words.

Ini and Fiona have a conversation during their watch shift, in which it's revealed that Ini had perhaps sensed more than she let on when the group was trying to find portals, and opted to say nothing. When pressed, Ini assures Fiona that while Seth is free to make whatever choices she wants to — including what company she keeps no matter how *obviously* prone to lying they are — she's not interested in being the agent of Seth's next untimely death, especially to seek out a phenomenon they can do absolutely nothing about. With both of them unsettled by the conversation, Fiona not especially pleased at having her lying called out so openly and repeatedly, when they notice the sounds of passing conversation a few tunnels away, it is perhaps not surprising that Fiona decides to go investigate it, Ini hot on her heels, shaking Rorrik and Seth awake to keep an eye out as they went.

While Rorrik and Seth wait and worry, Fiona and Ini track their quarry — a handful of duergar and a couple of troglodytes — to a large cavern where it seems they join many others of their kind, at least ten in total but likely more. With even Fiona admitting these are not good odds for a fight, they sneak back to the group, where Seth and Rorrik return to sleep, and Muirgurn takes the final watch herself.

## Thursday, August 30, 2351

### Session 81 (cont)

The following morning brings a discussion of whether or not to look into the duergar and troglodytes — presumably the same group that took out Deckhun before, given the relative rarity of the two groups working together. Assured that Seth's fathers will likely not be arriving that day, it's up to them how they choose to use their time. No one seems especially eager to needlessly look for danger at least until the resurrection has happened, so most of the party goes down to check in on things at Coppermine, while Samsok remains above the town with Earl — you know, because spell slots. It's just about the spell slots, okay?

The rest of the party spends a couple of hours helping with reconstruction efforts in town before going to rejoin the others, where they find Earl and Samsok deep in their flirtation and Muirgurn casually using her racial Invisibility feature to give them privacy. After a brief discussion, the group agrees to do some general recon around the area *aside* from where they know the duergar and troglodytes seemed to be collecting, to try and catalogue any other nearby threats. Spending the better part of an hour looking around, they find nothing else obviously troubling. Again, they spend the night with Earl and Muirgurn, Seth strongly encouraging everyone to resist the urge to go on any more night-time adventures. Thankfully, that night's watch passes without incident.

## Friday, August 31, 2351

### Session 81 (cont)

The party discusses what to do, and what provisions to make in case Seth's fathers are unable to make it in time for the resurrection. Both Earl and Muirgurn seem somewhat hesitant to discuss this eventuality, with Muirgurn in particular clamming up whenever mention of her entering Coppermine is made. It looks as though Samsok and Earl may be tragically separated until Earl makes a confession: she kind of sort of thinks she has a spell that would let her enter the town, but she'd forgotten about it until now because it's usually such a useless spell. So, Samsok becomes an owl, and Earl becomes a cloud, and both parties enter Coppermine once again. They stop in at the tavern where they'd previously slept to ensure they'll be able to do so again, and find an unwelcome surprise delivered by Seth's niece Numil, who's only about eight years younger than Seth herself. A letter has been left for Seth, requesting her presence and that of her companions at the town hall at their earliest convenience.

After some awkward conversation between Seth and her niece — the child of Seth's oldest brother, who she did not part on the best of terms with — the party heads all the way down to the glory of Copperheart, where only Coppermine's most elite elite live. There, they're ushered into a meeting room where they meet Priphina Sapphireshaper, royal advisor and the ex-girlfriend of Seth's twin. Priphina is a consummate professional, obviously from money but not ostentatious in her presentation, greeting each of the eight of them warmly, but immediately backing off when cues to do so are given, and even taking Fiona starting to groom her in relatively good spirits.

Priphina has a proposition for the party — for both parties, actually. Coppermine is not equipped to deal with the threats it's been facing, and it needs answers and solutions fast. Once all personal matters have been resolved, the crown is willing to pay 3,000 gp in gold, gems, and precious metals to whoever is able to find out the nature of the threats Coppermine has been facing, and to either eradicate those threats or find a sustainable means of evading them while opening up trade and mining once more.

After a brief discussion, it's agreed: after Deck's resurrection, they can certainly try.

### Session 82

After this meeting, Seth went to go visit their less hostile living sibling, Kailwen. While they reconnected with Kailwen, who was still recovering from their injuries in the Shaleshelf clinic, the rest of the party returned to the tavern, beginning to foster various kinds of chaos, from Samsok's attempt to play the spoons to Fiona summoning a rave dome. Seth, meanwhile, ran into another one of her exes: Gawi Silversong, one of Coppermine's healers. The reunion was as awkward and stammery as anyone could have hoped for.

When Seth returned, the party settled in for an evening of relaxation, drink, and socialization, with the group reaching varying levels of intoxication and questioning one another about their lives. In the process, they got to know a little bit more about Fiona's past, specifically when she admitted she had only intended to kill a single vampire on the occasion she'd accidentally killed several.

> "Fiona, your enthusiasm for your goals is impressive and concerning at the same time, and I'm still trying to unpack that." —Rorrik
>
>

Late that evening, Seth's fathers arrived, with two human women and a drow woman in tow. After a brief union between Seth and her dads, the group went to Coppermine's temple to attempt the resurrection, the three gnomes making their offerings to bring Deckhun back to life. The ritual was successful, and the session ended with the family reunited in each other's arms.

### Session 83

Making their exit from the temple, the party left Deck to recuperate in the Shaleshelf clinic, her fathers and their friends finding accommodations elsewhere while they returned to rest in the tavern.

## Saturday, September 1, 2351

#### Session 83 (cont)

The following morning, Seth went to go check in on her twin, and found herself abruptly ambushed by her third ex: Arimyin Cobaltcrafter, who appeared out of nowhere with a bottle of absolutely rotgut booze and the offer for some company. Seth declined to catch up for the time being, which Arimyin took in stride. Seth returned to the group, and that afternoon they set out to find the group of troglodytes and duergar Fiona and Ini had previously scouted out, to see if they could start to unravel the mystery of Coppermine's recent troubles.

Setting out with Ini, Muirgurn and Earl in tow, they quickly found the group's hideout, and listening in on them from nearby, those who spoke Dwarvish overheard two of the duergar guards talking about "the master." Noting this for later, they found themselves abruptly in battle when the guards overheard the sounds of spellcasting. A brief but demanding battle ensued, the party quickly realizing the foes they fought were little match for them, though Samsok suffered some trauma as he found himself repeatedly identified as the snackiest snack in the cavern. (Earl agreed, but she wasn't nearly so rude about it as the troglodytes.)

### Session 84

Wiping out the last of their foes thanks in no small part to the ring of fire Earl erected, barbequing several invisible duergar alive, the party began to clean up, agreeing to take one of the duergar bodies back with them to interrogate using Rorrik's magic the next day. In the process of investigation and looting, Samsok discreetly took a sample of barbequed duergar flesh; only Ini noticed, though she said nothing about it at the time.

The party returned to Coppermine where they were hailed as heroes, the svirfnebli elated at the defeat of so many of their hated foes. This shed a new light on the nature of svirfnebli for some of the party members, as the creatures, normally sedate by Underdark standards, were overjoyed to learn of the slaughter of the duergar they had been raised to fear. Rorrik in particular was not thrilled at this reaction. Fiona, on the other hand, was happy to soak up adulation from the duergar who piled into the tavern to ask about their great victory, and she quickly became the darling of the evening, telling and retelling the tale of their epic battle. (How many duergar did they kill? Loads, probably.)

Over the course of the celebrations, it is mentioned that Seth and her friends had previously died. This information, previously unknown to Muirgurn and Earl, does not sit well with Muirgurn, who storms off in search of something to smoke. Ini also gets a surprise when she learns Seth has died not once this year, but twice. Recognizing that she should probably talk to her twin about this before anyone else does, Seth heads back off to the clinic, while the rest of the group handles the fallout in their own ways.

Ini, for her part, approaches Rorrik to discreetly inform him of Samsok's illicit snack. Someone said "snack of opportunity" and I don't remember who but I wrote it down and it's very good so I'm immortalizing it here. While Ini and Rorrik talk, Samsok approaches Alja, in a *Survivor*-style attempt to solidify alliances before everything blows up. Ini, meanwhile, resists the urge to interrogate Rorrik about the first time Seth died. At Alja's advice, Samsok goes to confess his crime to Rorrik, with her assurances that no one is going to kick him out of the group over it.

>
> "Do you love me? Are we friends? Even though I don't always make the best choices?" —Samsok
>
>

Rorrik takes Samsok's confession with a level head, assuring Samsok that he's still in the group, but discouraging him from future snacks of opportunity. Samsok confirms that this means it's okay to burn enemies alive, but not to eat them after. This question gives Rorrik a momentary moral crisis, but he agrees that's basically the gist.

Seth's trepidation about telling Deck is, perhaps, somewhat relieved when their main reaction, aside from wanting to drink, is to crow their absolute delight over Seth being the bad twin for once. Despite this sibling victory, they agree wholeheartedly with Seth that their fathers *cannot* be told about this, at least for several decades and probably ever.

### Session 85

The twins continue to talk, with Seth guiding the discussion away from her own foibles and onto what the fuck is up between Deck and Muirgurn. Deck shows their sibling resemblance far more strongly than usual as they stammer their way through an explanation of how they only actually kissed Muirgurn around the time they were fleeing Seattle for their lives and how, as such, they haven't had much time to work on their communication skills or the whole concept of a relationship. Seth tells them to stop being an idiot and talk to their girlfriend; Deck tells Seth to stop being a slacker and sleep with hers.

Eventually, Seth returns to the tavern to find Muirgurn drinking and Samsok eating vegetables. The rest of the evening is passed remarkably peacefully, given some of the conversation topics that have come up.

## Sunday, September 2, 2351

### Session 85 (cont)

The following morning the party is woken earlier than they'd prefer by the arrival of Kethren and Sheirta, who come bearing bad news. It seems the previous evening Thendrick and Kethren had drunk rather a lot of wine while bonding over their trauma, and that when Kethren had awoken that morning Thendrick was nowhere to be found. Checking with the town guards, they'd learned that he, along with his drow friend Khaless, had apparently left Coppermine early that morning. Seth tries to contact him via Sending, to no avail. Instead, the party tracks the pair, finding the signs of a scuffle and giant lizard tracks leading away. The party follows the path all the way to some sort of compound, its entrance trapped with a large boulder that's seemingly there to seal it from the outside. Sneaking in cloaked by magic, the party has a good start at trying to infiltrate the lair stealthily, but find themselves in a fight yet again when an invisible Muirgurn stumbles and falls from a ladder, alerting the kuo-toa within to the presence of intruders. With Samsok up top having nets repeatedly thrown on him, the rest scramble to climb the ladders to join the fight and help their friend.

### Session 86

The battle continues, the party chasing after those kuo-toa who flee deeper into the compound to alert their fellows. Though most of the kuo-toa are weak foes, they are great enough in number to keep the party engaged as they fight deeper and deeper, the sound of a great rock falling alerting them to the fact that they are now trapped inside. Fighting their way four levels up, they find themselves eventually in an area with a teleportation circle.

### Session 87

The fight continues, with the party investigating a grand set of stairs leading up another level. They find fewer foes up here, but several of them fall prey to an unexpected peril: a mirror, that traps them one by one, first Fiona, then Samsok, then Muirgurn. However, the party is in for an extra surprise when upon taking Muirgurn in, the mirror spits out a young red-headed halfling woman: Yesphina. Yesphina is equally perplexed by her circumstances, or at least by there being people-not-Theodard who know her name in the vicinity.

As Rorrik is also claimed by the mirror, another ally is produced: Khaless, the drow friend of Seth's fathers. Khaless immediately starts attacking the mirror, averting her gaze from it. Yesphina protests, saying her friend is in there; Khaless replies that hers is, too. While others focus on the remaining kuo-toa and the archpriest leading them, a few attack the mirror, and when it shatters, the remainder of its prisoners are released: Rorrik, Muirgurn, Samsok, Fiona, Theodard Longhole, Thendrick, some coppermine guards, a drow man, a duergar, and a kobold. Theodard is as shocked to see Rorrik and Seth as they were to see Yesphina, but he has more pressing matters on his mind: looking to Rorrik, he asks, Have you killed the beholder?

And that's how they find out they're in a beholder's lair. Though the beholder appearing in the adjacent chamber and starting to blast people with its eye rays would've given it away, too.

Chaos ensues. The kobold flees, while most of the others freed from the mirror die or are at least knocked unconscious in the next several seconds. Ini arrives on the scene disguised as a kuo-toa, having attempted to sneak up on them from the alternate route — with next to no kuo-toa left to hurt, she heals everyone she can see instead. The kuo-toa archpriest proves a frustrating foe as the party learns what it's like to be on the other side of a cleric's murder aura. Thendrick is nearly felled, but is revived and dragged to (relative) safety. Alja is paralyzed, and Rorrik nearly turned to stone. The beholder offers them the opportunity to live, if they accept it as their new master. They decline.

And, though the battle was already serious enough, it is solidified as one none of the party are liable to forget when Samsok is disintegrated by one of the beholder's eye rays, leaving nothing behind but a pile of dust.

Fiona scrambles to scoop his remains into her bag while the rest of the party tries their best to defend those who need it, to destroy the archpriest, and to focus on the task of killing this legendary creature, leaving their grief to be dealt with if they happen to survive.

### Session 88

Muirgurn defeats the archpriest, leaving the party to focus on the rather pressing final issue of the beholder. She also serves as the one to reveal to everyone else, once the beholder withdraws into its main chamber, that the corridor leading to it is trapped with ten feet of quicksand. She is quickly rescued by Khaless, while the others make various attempts at leaping inside.

Among the first to reach the next chamber are Alja and Rorrik, who both take their turns taking several hits from its rays. Rorrik rouses Alja from unconsciousness, only to be felled himself a moment later. Fortunately, it is not the disintegration ray that hits him, but another which, when it knocks him out, stops his heart utterly, putting him past the point of easy revivification.

Fiona, charmed by the beholder, is thrown into something of a panic at the sight of all her friends fighting each other. Yesphina attempts to calm her down, suggesting she will help Fiona in her quest to resolve this conflict peacefully. As the fight escalates, Fiona panics and turns into a giant wasp, continuing her attempts at diplomacy through loud buzzing and emphatic gestures with her stinger. Yesphina knocks a charmed guard unconscious with a sleep spell, to keep him out of the fight and everyone else's way, not long before hitching a ride along with Theodard over the quicksand by holding tight to giant wasp Fiona.

It isn't long before most of the party is inside the chamber with the beholder, fighting furiously to avenge Rorrik, Samsok, and the others who have fallen. It is Khaless, with her levitation abilities, who finally manages to fell the thing, though Alja does her best to absolutely ensure it's dead once she learns what's happened to Samsok, fairly pulverizing the corpse.

Tensions are high as the immediate danger fades, leaving shock and grief to set in. While Seth gets quiet, lost in shock, Fiona sobs at the loss of all three of her dear friends, and Alja gets irritable when Theodard begins to discuss the logistics of what dangers may be remaining in the temple and what their next steps may be. Agreeing to take a rest to patch up the worst of their wounds before exploring further, the group settles in, hoping no more danger will come for them.

### Session 89

Somewhat unsurprisingly, this hope is misplaced, though the handful of kuo-toa who come up to investigate are quickly dispatched. Yesphina attempts to comfort Fiona, Thendrick apologizes to Seth, and Ini does her best to talk Alja down from the worst of her anger, encouraging her to punch a wall as needed. (She does, twice, and manages not to break any fingers in the process.) Theodard and Muirgurn talk logistics, discussing how best to transport the three bodies they have — Rorrik, one Coppermine guard, and the mysterious drow man — as well as the feasibility of restoring the statues of the beholder's past victims, not all of whom survived the battle intact.

Exploring the rest of the lair, they find a couple more giant spiders, various basic supplies, and a room with an astonishing quantity of treasure. With our heroes collecting some for themselves, their allies taking a pick as well — though Thendrick, notably, abstains from collecting any — they begin to set themselves to the task of moving the boulder and returning to Coppermine.

Sadly, with two of their strongest members down for the count, the remainder of the group does not count strength as its strong suit, and it is the better part of six hours before they return to Coppermine, a solid four spent figuring out how to dislodge the gigantic rock. They return to an overwhelming response, a mixture of excitement, relief, gratitude, grief, bewilderment, disbelief, and uncertainty. Still, after taking some time to collect themselves and clean the worst of the day's grime off, they agree to resurrect Rorrik sooner rather than later. Theodard offers for him and Yesphina to stay behind if that's what the group would prefer, but Seth says she thinks Rorrik would appreciate having them there. Alja goes to apologize to Theodard, with Theodard conceding that no one is at their best under these sorts of circumstances.

With Coppermine's beleagured old priest leading the ritual once again, Seth, Fiona, and Alja make their respective offerings, Yesphina magically guiding them as they go. On the Fugue Plane, Rorrik knows he is looking for Samsok, but cannot find him. Laying Rorrik's shield and the amulet of Tyr they found in the beholder's lair with him, Seth creates a minor illusion of his spiritual weapon, beginning to carefully write around the edge of his shield, the letters incomprehensible to those watching her. Fiona tells him with absolute fucking solemnity that his god spoke to her, and needs him to come back, because he has a special mission for Rorrik. With a 28 Deception, she is so convincing that most of those watching are mechanically incapable of seeing through the lie. Alja makes a heartfelt speech, imploring him to come back, saying essentially that they need their designated adult to come back and supervise them. Though Rorrik, who is being resurrected for the third time in four months, is weary, he answers the call, clawing back to the world of the living once more.

He is bundled up and escorted back to the tavern, where Seth's niece is aggressively keeping a corner quiet for them. There, they find Earl, Muirgurn, and a similarly bundled up Deck, who greets him as a fellow member of the newly resurrected. Though Rorrik dozes off and on for a while, falling asleep well before the others, the exhausted group commiserates for a bit. Muirgurn says she and her two allies have reached out to an ally, who has a possible lead for them to look into to help Samsok — though it's far away, in the opposite of the direction the group will be headed if they intend to return to Mohkinstsis. Seth says she doesn't think they'll be going back to Mohkinstsis until they've sorted things out with Samsok, though Alja points out if that's the case they ought to send word to the Famous Five, suggesting that's not a group they'd like to cross (particularly as they adventure with several magical items and other gear loaned to them free of charge from the thieves' guild). Muirgurn suggests that, even if the group does not intend to go back to the city right away, her lead is likely something the three of them are better off investigating on their own — it is much easier, after all, to avoid notice by the authorities as a smaller group, skilled in stealth. Alja asks Seth to send Tshering a message, which she does; she is chided for the lateness of the hour and told to flick Alja in the nose and hug her.

Theodard confesses this isn't the first time he fought a beholder, admitting that the last time it happened, only he and one other companion made it out alive. All considered, he says, the second time went pretty well. Later, he admits to Yesphina that the woman who escaped with him, a gnome, had been one of the only companions he escaped another tragedy with, when the mage rebellion in Luthcheq he'd helped fell apart in tragedy and devastation. It wasn't long after that, he says, that she died as well, and since then he hasn't travelled purposefully with companions outside of paid engagements for the better part of two decades. Yesphina begins to suggest she would understand if changing that, in particular with her situation, was too much for him, but he corrects her, saying he just wanted her to know he didn't regret travelling with her.

Seth, overwhelmed by the events of the day (and, let's be honest, the last several months), excuses herself, and Deck follows after her, stealthing well, but not well enough for her twinsense not to kick in. When she confesses her guilt over bringing her friends with her to Coppermine, Deck lovingly tears her a new one, pointing out that any of the people she came with would happily have gone through all of that and more for her, and that she knows damn well she would do the same for them, and would be appalled if they tried blaming themselves for her willingness to help her loved ones. Conceding the point (if perhaps not fully absorbing it), she takes another few moments before returning to the group. Before beginning to rest for the night, she makes a half-hearted attempt to reach out to Maeve, but without channelling her energy properly, is unable to produce a response.