Abyses 8: TeamGhost vs TeamZombie

## The Decomposed Debate

* After a tense negotiation involving attempted possession and threats of violence, the gang managed to convince both King Reven and the ghostly Ludav to join their party until they reach Reven’s outpost, which he expects them to by the end of the next day.
* King Reven reveals that he is something of a magician himself, and successfully discerns the function of the magical items Gavin found in the Grimlock base. Afterwards he lays down and closes his eyes, causing the constantly bleeding wounds to stop bleeding.

## Kesser? I Hardly Knew Her!

* Bop flies off while Dimitrius is trying to meditate, and returns with a very pissed off weasel, and a small creature chasing him.
* After stepping into the light the creature is revealed to be an out of breath halfling. He has an all-black eye, and is relatively clean for being so far deep into the Underdark.
* The halfling introduces himself as Kesser, he is friendly to the rest of the group but very confused, especially by the more odd individuals currently traveling with the party.
* Kesser claimed he was on the surface just a few minutes ago, after taking refuge from some ruffians who were chasing him. However an inspection of the tunnel he said he came from showed a featureless dead end.
* It is evident that Kesser is not comfortable with the kill or be killed lifestyle that the gang has had to adopt since being stranded in the Underdark, however he does express interest in going on a legendary adventure.
* Upon hearing about the gang’s repeated encounters with the Drow, Shuushar reveals that he was a slave at Velkynvelve, the Drow stalactite stronghold. He tells the party that the head of this stronghold is a very vindictive woman and will take the party’s escape from her attempted capture very personally. Until the party is successfully captured, she is likely to continue to send groups who will track down the group using the senses they have honed over hundreds of years in the Underdark.
* Kesser demonstrates his magical abilities for the party, manifesting a mage hand and an impressive light show.
* Kesser is not as tired as the rest of the group, and uncomfortable sleeping on the cave floor, so he stays awake for most of the rest, making idle chatter with each member of the party during their watch.
* He speaks with Gavin about killing people. Gavin talks about his time spent in the military.
* After Gavin’s shift Ludav begins “haunting” him while he tries to sleep, attempting to deprive him of a long rest out of sheer boredom. Gavin teaches Kesser a couple of words of Undercommon, allowing him and Ludav to have a one-sided conversation for the rest of the night.

## Same Cave Different Day

* The next morning, Kesser is disheartened to learn that much of the diet of an Underdark explorer consists of unseasoned mushrooms and fungi.
* As Dimitrius continued to navigate the party towards Sloobludop the caves started splitting off from each other more and more, making it difficult to navigate even with a map. Eventually he came to a fork that he could not discern whether he was supposed to go left or right.
* Luckily Shuushar was familiar with this area and remembered that the paths of the forked road reconveined after a couple hundred feet, so it made no difference which path they took.
* Choosing to exercise caution in this alien environment, Kesser sent his familiar Sneaky Pete ahead to scout out the right path. This revealed the same kind of multi-limbed spike-riddled zombie that was chasing the gang when they first fled the Drow slave camp.
* Seeing this the party unanimously chose to go down the left path.

## Drow, and Drow, and Drow, and Drow

* Upon heading down the left path Darank was impaled with two poisoned tipped arrows, which had little effect on him.
* The Drow warrior that originally slew Ludav was hiding behind a cave pillar on top of a giant spider, with a Drow priestess riding behind him.
* As soon as the combat began King Reven began muttering something in a guttural language and the smell of sulfur began filling the air around him.
* Seeing the man who killed him, Ludav’s ghost let out a horrifying scream that seemed to pull part of the Drow’s very soul out of his body, and nearly did the same to a bystanding Dimitrius.
* The Drow priestess conjured a spiritual weapon, an eight-tailed whip with spider shaped barbs at the end, and began lashing at the apparition.
* The Drow warrior called out for backup, but before any reinforcements could arrive Darank and Gavin set the spider he was riding ablaze using oil and fire.
* The Drow warrior, still deeply disturbed by Ludav’s visage, dove off his flaming steed in a panic. He landed with a hard thud and was quickly surrounded by Darank and Dimitrius.
* As Dimitrius was laying into the Drow warrior, small spiders composed of shadow emanated from the Umbra amulet around his neck and began repairing the damage as he was sustaining it.
* This mysterious magical effect had the unexpected consequence of freezing time for an entire week and making god himself contemplate self harm.