Session 316

# November 16th, 2023 - Down the Dungeon Level

## Down the Dungeon Level

The session began with the party leaving Xanathar’s lair with their escort, a lieutenant and two thugs. They led the party north through the sewers in the general direction of the Iron Citadel, and eventually to a dead end. There, the lieutenant pushed open a secret door that led to a short rough dugout tunnel that slanted slightly upward. At the end of the tunnel, one of the thugs pulled free a fake section of brick wall with a plate attached to it, opening into a massive thirty foot circular pit lined with brick. They were roughly fifty feet from the surface, which the gang members said would take the group to the famous Yawning Tavern above, where groups of adventurers would make their way down into the massive Undermountain mega-dungeon.

However, these days the tavern was continuously manned by invader guards. In the rough dug tunnel also was a large bundle of rope attached to a large boulder that the gang members lowered into the hole, which plummeted deep into darkness. The lieutenant said the pit was another hundred and fifty feet down or so to the ‘first level’ of Undermountain, collectively known as the Dungeon Level. One of the thugs was staying behind to reseal the hole, and the party insisted the other gang members went first, with the thug and then the lieutenant climbing down the rope. Watch just started climbing down the wall himself, while Fax drove a climbing piton into the wall so the group would recognize where the secret door was on their way back.

The thug that went first was shaky, and he actually slipped and fell to his death. Orsais also lost his grip about halfway down and was severely wounded, but did not die. The rest of the party and the lieutenant reached the bottom without issue, and Carlton healed their bard. Warning the party to be quiet and stealthy as the invaders had set up not far from this entryway on the first Dungeon level not to mention the other monstrous inhabitants, Raven cast a *pass without trace* spell around them. This made the group leave no footprints in the sand and dirt, and enveloped them with a sphere of *silence* around the druid. Carlton cast *light* upon one of his gauntlets, and the lieutenant pulled a small lantern from his pack that he lit and carried in front of him.

The whole level looked to be constructed with stone blocks and large square rooms and corridors. The lieutenant escorted them down the first corridor into a long chamber that had bas reliefs on both sides of the walls depicting what looked like each type of demon. It was an ominous sign of what was to come. Beyond that chamber was an intersection room that had four tunnels leading into it, and the lieutenant cautioned the invaders had set up down the tunnel to the north, while he took them across the room to the west. The long corridor they went down was lined with small alcoves on each side that each had a tall oval mirror embedded into it. Each set of mirrors had infinite reflections within as they passed, with the lieutenant leading the way with his lantern.

Carlton followed the lieutenant, with Raven in the middle of the group so his silence sphere would cover them all. When Joakim and Raven passed by the last set of mirrors, after the two light bearers, two shadow duplicates of each of them stepped out of the set of mirrors and started attacking them. Joakim, already weaker than a standard human, had his strength severely drained by one of the shadows. Carlton, Raven, and Watch quickly destroyed the shadow creatures and shattered their two mirrors. Joakim was unfortunately left desperately weakened and had to use his staff as a walking stick to keep up.

The lieutenant continued to lead the party through the level, passing a number of turns, and through a number of smaller chambers. They passed what appeared to be a torture chamber, and through a room that was only filled with a pair of pillars with an archway connecting them. Ever curious, the party took turns passing through the archway with nothing happening to most, but Fax had the mundane weapons upon him temporarily become magical. Two others became temporarily invisible. They passed a headless statue of a naked woman, that Fax searched the rubble at the base to find a stone medusa head. He promptly returned the head to the pile.

## Hal the Friendly Revenant

They passed another set of tunnels the lieutenant said were occupied by goblinoids, and ultimately they entered into a large square chamber they dubbed the Map Room. One wall had a thirty foot high carving that depicted the layers of the Undermountain, totaling ten levels total. However, at the very bottom was a symbol of a large tower, but no level. One level had the symbol of a maze, another had what looked to be a castle, and the second level appeared to have the town they knew to be Skullport. The other major feature in the Map Room was basically a stone well in the center of the room, from which Raven heard weak sounds coming from. He looked down into the well and with his darkvision saw what appeared to be a humanoid shuffling around at the bottom.

Calling out to this person, it looked up and began talking to them asking for help. But it was no normal human, it was some sort of undead. It introduced itself as Halleth, and told his sad story. He was a member of an adventuring party that was down here searching for treasure, and after returning to Dungeon Level with loot, he disagreed with his mates. They wanted to hide their loot and return to find more while Halleth - who the party decided to call Hal - wanted to leave and secure what they had. His ‘friends’ had stabbed him in the back and tossed him down the well.

Watch asked what the date was when he remembered being backstabbed, and Hal indicated it was seven years ago. He didn’t know how he woke up nor how long it had been until Watch told him the date, but either way he wanted the party to help him up and he could help escort them to the next level. All he wanted was to attempt to find his previous ‘friends’, and hope to find them dead - or to get his revenge upon them. The party agreed, with Carlton lowering a rope and hauling the undead up out of the well. He was friendly and quickly started to compete with the gang lieutenant who was their current guide. It turned out the next chamber had the massive staircase that went down into the darkness of the second level - their current objective - and the lieutenant said this was where he would part with them. They had a ‘new guide’ anyway.

The group bid farewell to the lieutenant and they went down the stairs. They went two hundred feet down into the depths emerging into an area that was musty. There was apparently a river down on this underground level after all. The undead guided them through a few corridors attempting to quickly get them to the river, and they began to pass from nice stone block rooms into more rough cavern looking passages. Down a cave passage that branched from the direction Hal was leading them, Carlton’s *light* flickered off what appeared to be a pile of coins in an adjoining chamber.

Curious as to why such treasure would just be left out, the paladin followed by Raven and the rest of the group cautiously went to investigate. Carlton was first into the room, and it appeared to be empty save for the pile of coins, until he looked up and saw a ledge where a mangled creature stared at him, and then pounced. It was a three headed chimera, with the body of a lion, wings of a dragon, and three heads: one lion, one small dragon, and one goat. The monstrosity lashed out at Carlton, but the group reacted quickly. Raven summoned his small horde of eight raptors to surround the beast, while Joakim *eldritch blasted* the monster towards the back of the chamber.

Raven’s raptor pack bounced on the creature and tore it to shreds, and then began to feast. Hal exclaimed the group was indeed powerful. Hesitant of any curse, the group convinced Watch to shovel the massive pile of coin into their bag of holding, it was mostly thousands of copper pieces, but there was a good number of silver and a few hundred gold pieces within the pile as well.

And that is where the session ended, it was the late afternoon of the twentieth day since the party first left Black Landing.

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