Session 33

# March 28th, 2019 - Lair of the Froghemoth

## Stealing Some Stolen Smuggled… Treasure

The session began as Rufus concluded the exploration of Naerytar castle’s central tower. They had already found papers detailing the command word of a portal hidden within an old shrine beneath the castle. While the rest of the party quickly tossed the first three floors, Rufus went to the final rooftop floor. However, this level was not a roof as much as an observatory, with a domed structure overhead. Through a large opening in the dome, the central telescope peered. This massive telescope made of what looked like brass was looking downward into the swamps, not up into the sky.

Scanning the rest of the room, there was a worktable with some papers, but what mostly caught Rufus’ attention were the eight gargoyle statues spread around the edge of the room. As quietly as the halfling could, he crept across the room and peered through the telescope. It was looking at the opening of another black dragon lair. This one was not the lair Rufus had traveled to earlier in the night, as there were no lizardmen huts outside, or kobolds at the entry. However, the black dragon Voraghamanthar was there.

Rufus then realized it was not Vorag, as the dragon looked exactly the same, but was not wearing the magic items the halfling remembered noticing. Unsure of what this meant, but realizing the dragon was not near, Rufus continued back down the tower to return to his friends. The rest of the party had recovered from Rezmir’s chambers her personal set of purple cult regalia. After peering out the windows and seeing the battle in the outer courtyard having concluded, the party exited the central tower. The sounds of the battle out in front of the castle could still be heard in the distance. From the inner courtyard, one of the two unexplored paths led into a corner tower that was clearly being used as a garbage heap.

The other path led to the opposite wall of the castle from where they entered, and the other two corner towers. Rufus picked the lock on the door, and the group slightly opened the door to look through. Inside, the long castle great hall stood, with tall windows on the opposite wall and filled with long sturdy wooden tables. Some of the tables were covered with crates, but one near them was covered with a very large pile of coin and gems. The room also had quite a few human cultists, some anxiously working away while others stood guard. Just as they were noticed the party flung the door open and begun firing through it.

Arrows, bolts, and magic streamed into the room as the cultists rushed to attack the intruders. The party held at the doorway choke point with Rachen stopping any from spilling out into the courtyard, and they soon had a small pile of bodies in front of them. Then, as more cultists came from the large rear tower adjoining the hall the party entered and fought inside. Once the bloodshed had finished, the party had killed over a dozen cultists and this section of the castle seemed abandoned in it’s quiet. The party piled all the open treasure into their *bag of holding*, and scouted out the large tower. This was clearly the cultist’s section of the castle, but the barrack rooms were filled with worthless possessions and empty of cultists.

## Lair of the Froghemoth

The staircase in this cultist tower also went downwards. And so, once their search was done the group gathered and went underneath the castle. After three stories of turning staircase the party entered a small entry cavern lit by a single lantern hung on the wall. Thia examined the footprints in the thick mud and dirt, and determined that only bullywugs used the right side exit. Humans and lizardfolk used the left side exit, and so the party followed that human path.

The path wound and continued going downward in total darkness through two more small chambers, with the second having a fifteen foot vertical drop. Rachen lit a torch so he could see, as everyone else in the group either had darkvision, or in Rufus’ case *goggles of night*. A crude wooden crane was at the top of the small cliff that looked to be used to lower crates of treasure down. There was also a poorly tied rope ladder that the group used to get down and continue on. The tunnel that led out of this chamber shrunk down to only allowing a single person at a time, and so the group moved quietly, and Rachen kept his torch light back.

When the lead member saw the tunnel was turning to open into a much larger cavern filled with water they backed up. Instead of rushing into this large space, Alburt took control of his owl, *the Breeze*, and flew into the chamber. As Alburt flew in and circled the large cavern, he noticed it was mostly filled with water, but it had land around some sides and had two exit tunnels. There was also rock outcropping in the middle of the lake, and Alburt saw was a giant frog sitting on it staring back at him. In an instant the frog’s giant tongue shot out and wrapped around the Breeze, pulling him into its mouth and severing Alburt’s telepathic connection with a crunch.

The wizard recounted what he saw, and the party decided to have Thia don Rezmir’s wearer of purple regalia to see if the creature would let them pass. The wood elf calmly entered the chamber alone and tried to signal the frog, but it did not react other than staring at her and croaking. She also noticed across the dark cavern there was another larger outcropping above water, filled with more giant frogs. Finally, she saw three eyestalks sticking out of the water staring at her, near what she surmised was the path forward. Thia returned to the party and told them what she saw, saying she thought one of the paths would just lead them back to the entry chamber path they did not originally take.

It appeared as both routes from the entry led to this large underground lake cavern, and the path forward looked blocked by whatever was attached to these weird eye stalks in the water. The party entered the room together, and hug the land above water and started moving around the chamber to where they could get more space to fight without going in the water. They did not get far until the three eye stalks erupted from the water revealing themselves to be the small eyes on top of this enormous monster frog. This froghemoth moved amazingly quickly to attack the group and the dozen or so giant frogs in the chamber moved to follow. And then the party was surrounded by giant frogs and this enormous monstrous beast with four tentacles and a nasty spiked tongue.

They only stood on a small five foot width of land against the cave wall. Alburt was in the rear of their marching order and was almost wrapped up by the froghemoth’s giant tongue. But the wizard barely escaped to the middle of his parties formation. Cadmus and Rachen swung their weapons, Rufus and Thia shot their bows, and both the wizards used their magic as best they could. Lachlan then got restrained by one of the froghemoth’s tentacles, and Rachen tried to sever it unsuccessfully.

The session ended there as the party faced one of their fiercest battles yet, and the sound of hollering bullywugs grew louder from the unexplored tunnel to their left. It was still the morning of the one hundred and forty fifth day since the raid on Greenest.

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