Shortly after the Abyss party arrives and secures the Temple of Lolth, that group de-itemizes the Underdark party. The Underdark group (Arianna, Rufus, Tasha Whiteblood, Vladimir Drake, Raitan Drake, Carnellia and Melkin, Boodan, Allyrion, Elderan, Gunny, and Ael'Mara) is charged with keeping the temple-cavern secure and, once the Abyss party has left, traveling to the drow city of Erelhui-Cinlu where they are to wipe out the clergy of Lolth. If possible, they are to destroy as much of the Spider Queen's base of power as possible with the hope some other power may challenge her rule both in the city and in the greater Underdark. To help them in this endeavor is the rescued, male drow rebel, Nilorim.
The first night, while the rest of the group watches and guards the cavern, Gunny gathers several suits of drow chainmail and starts making modifications so a male elf (Ael'Mara) can wear it. Elderan and Ael'Mara watch the bottom level of the temple. Tasha, Rufus and Vladimir patrol the 2nd level. Suevella, Allyrion and Raitan oversee the 3rd level, where the Abyss party is sleeping. Arianna and Boodan take the 4th level and Melkin guards the top level, with its huge section of missing wall.
Sometime in the middle of the night, a large group of ghouls and spiders start pouring through the entrance to the temple below. Elderan puts up a wall of force while Ael'Mara creeps off to get help. Meanwhile, simultaneously above, giant spiders start crawling into the temple from the top floor. Melkin warns Carnellia telepathically and moves down to the 4th level.
With the wall of force in place and the ghouls uselessly trying to claw through it, Elderan quickly glides down to the dungeon level to fetch Gunny. Ael'Mara, meanwhile, finds Tasha, Vlad and Rufus and the four descend to the entry hall just as Elderan and Gunny run up the stairs to join them.
Above, Boodan sneaks up stairs, sees the spiders and runs back down. Raitan leads a charge up, followed by Arianna and Melkin. The spiders are particularly tough and don't die too quickly, despite Raitan's strength. He's bitten several times. Shadows join the spiders. Raitan is hedged in on all sides. Arianna turns a few shadows and is about to use magic when a young female drow climbs into the temple and casts a spell. Raitan is held and helpless. Arianna is forced to abort her spell to save his life. Melkin closes in to cover the priestess of Athena's back and Raitan's front.
A now-flying Elderan drops his wand's wall of force after a signal from Tasha, who casts disrupt unlife. The spell blasts away all the ghouls and ghasts in the main hall, but the spiders rush forward, followed by yet more undead. Ael'Mara, Gunny and Rufus form a fighting line with Elderan flying above as missile support. Tasha is behind this shield of warriors, spells ready with a mirror imaged Vladimir at her side. Too bad these spiders leap. . . right over the wall of fighters. Ael'Mara is attacked from all sides. Gunnny and Rufus stand up well. Vladimir moves to protect Tasha.
Upstairs, Arianna is shielding Raitan's held body and slashing at spiders. Melkin is battling the spiders and shadows to the rear. Allyrion runs upstairs and grabs Boodan on the way. Just as they arrive, Arianna is held by the drow priestess. She hisses once, revealing VERY long incisors. Allyrion moves to protect the now helpless Arianna while Boodan and Malkin are still shielding Raitan. The shadows ignore all of them and concentrate on draining the helpless Laird of his strength and life. Carnellia charges upstairs.
Downstairs, Tasha attempts to control some of the ghouls, but only snares one. It turns against a spider, but far more are coming. Ael'Mara is not doing well and Vladimir is having a hard time keeping Tasha free. Gunny is methodically smashing the arachnids, but for each one he hammers, another leaps forward. Elderan's aerial arrow-fire barely prevents the heroes from being overwhelmed. Tasha blasts out with another disrupt unlife, obliterating all of the remaining undead. Gunny and Rufus firm up the fighting wall, taking some of the heat off of Ael'Mara. Vladimir, meanwhile, is bitten repeatedly, despite stoneskin and mirror image spells.
Carnellia turns the remaining shadows threatening Raitan. Melkin finishes off a spider, just as Boodan does likewise. Allyrion lashes out with his javelin of lightning, but manages only to seriously scorch the wall. The vampiress responds with another hold spell, this time catching Boodan. Allyrion tries to keep the spiders and vampiress back, but is hedged in by the giant spider facing him. Melkin is similarly engaged, shielding Raitan (and Boodan and the stairs going down). Carnellia neutralizes the poison running through Raitan's system, just in time to save his life. In a free moment, Allyrion manages to dust himself with undead repellent. Frustrated, the vampiress moves forward, grabs Arianna and prepares to feast on her life blood. . . .
Gunny smashes through the last of his foes,
rushing to help Ael'Mara who has been bitten several times. Rufus
has his situation in hand. Elderan peppers the remaining spiders
with arrows. Vladimir is looking poorly and still facing his first
spider, when Tasha blindsides it with her staff, squashing the
8' diameter bug's head flat. The bottom of the temple is secure.
Above, Allyrion sees the vampiress grab Arianna, but there is
nothing he can do. Melkin is slowing down, beginning to feel the
effects of the spider toxin. Carnellia cures Raitan so he will
live. . . at least for a while. The vampiress bites down, amazingly
unable to puncture Arianna's armor. Carnellia draws her beautiful
crystal wand and invokes it. A brilliant explosion of dazzling
light envelopes the group, targeted on the vampiress. When their
eyes clear, Carnellia and Allyrion see a badly burned body lying
next to Arianna. They make short work of the spiders and Allyrion
(surprisingly) plunges one of his (unsharpened, blunt) torches
through the drow vampiress' heart.
The heroes are cured of their wounds and the poison. When Mirkquin awakens, she taps the vampiress with her holy mace, blasting it out of existence. The Abyss part leaves the Prime Material plane and the Underdark group goes to sleep. The next day begins their assault on the domain of the drow. . .
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Day One one hour "out" |
Head out to Erelhui-Cinlu. Party encounters the remains of a roper and roc shortly after leaving the temple caverns. Nilorim and Carnellia continue their running feud. |
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Day Two late |
Shortly after camping, the party encounters the remains of a purple worm. While the party is camped out, Carnellia notices something. Whatever it is is staying at the edge of the wyvern watches. Gunny wakes up Raitan who throws a continual light stone, revealing a shadow-like creature. Raitan plugs it with two crossbow bolt and Gunny hits it with his war hammer. The creature flees. |
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Day Four late |
The party is a few hundred yards from the chasm-cavern. Boodan is scouting ahead using a piwafwi and an infravision spell. He spies a pair of drow hiding and sneaks back to warn the others. A fireball streaks past him to exploded behind the group and fill the cavern with flame. Half of the party is knocked to their knees. The blast is followed by a hold spell and a slow spell. Raitan leads Gunny and Rufus in a charge at the drow. Rai reaches the lead drow and yells, "What a neat pair of drow daggers I found?! Want them back?" So doing, he plunges the blades into the chest and out the back of the lead drow mage, the house Elderboy. The remaining drow focus on him. Another round of hold spells hit as well as the shadow demon, which pounces on Raitan. Vladimir appears out of the darkness and engages the other mage. Most of the party is either held or slowed, including Rufus and Gunny. The two Drakes are on their own for the moment. A this point the melee becomes a nightmare of hold spells. Except for Allyrion, Carnellia and Raitan (using Carnellia's ring) everyone else in the party is held at some point, including Arianna who basically missed another fight. Allyrion's remove paralysises helped, but there were five drow clerics, so anything moving was fair game. Alderan hasted Raitan, Vladimir, Gunny, Rufus and himself when things looked particularly bleak. This didn't help him when the last drow mage lined up Raitan, Rufus and Alderan (the last two helplessly held) for a nasty lightning bolt -- at least not too many items were slagged! The high priestess attempted to escape by melding into stone. Unfortunately for her, the party was waiting when she came out. Despite having dumped all of her healing magics on herself (including 20 phantom hit points), she was in sore shape after two rounds. She attempted to levitate to the chasm and freedom, but Tasha glued her to the ceiling with her wand of viscid globs. Dangling from the ceiling, the priestess looked like a pinnate. Tasha surgically cut her down in order to question the drow. Carnellia's potion of telepathy allowed the group a view into her mind and gain some information on events in Erelhui-Cinlu. While searching the bodies, the party found more than a dozen scrolls and several potions. Rufus tried one potion, a philter of love, and fell madly in love with Tasha. Then Ael'Mara started going through the scrolls. The first one was illegible. The second was cursed... A wave of Chaos formed around Ael'Mara and broke around the party. Those that tried to get away were the first to be overwhelmed. Except for Ael'Mara, Allyrion and Rufus, all the other heroes were spontaneously reincarnated as races of the Underdark. Nilorim became a hobgoblin, Boodan a goblin, Arianna a kobold, Tasha and Vladimir a mated pair of duregar (gray dwarves), Carnellia and Raitan a mated pair of drow, Melkin a pech, Gunny a troglodyte and Alderan a mind flayer. It was all the group could manage to not kill one another. As it was Nilorim was nearly slain twice -- both times by Carnellia. After Alderan (who can no longer speak since illithid have no vocal chords) gave Allyrion his wand of force (and a post-hypnotic suggestion to submit for "meal time" in the future), the group was able to cross the chasm and make camp in the far cavern. There they bedded down after an uneasy truce. |
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Day Five "morning" |
Arianna combined with Carnellia, Allyrion and Ael'Mara to cast remove curse. They managed to restore Raitan, Gunny, Nilorim and Boodan. |
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Day Six "morning" |
The clerics again cast a series of remove curses, restoring Arianna, Vladimir, Tasha. They also dispelled the love sickness of Rufus for Tasha. |
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Day Six "midnight" |
Giant spiders and shadows stalk the party. The heroes make short work of them before they have a chance to flee. |
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Day Seven early |
Elderan removed cursed back into his elven-form |
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Day Eight late |
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Day Ten midday |
Two hunting umber hulks ambush the party. Most of the party falls victim to confusion. Raitan takes out Arianna for the umber hulks, while Vlad attacks Allyrion. Rufus slashes up one of the 'hulks. The second hulk is pounced on before it can flee. |
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Day Twelve late |
Party encounters drowic vampire mage and his succubus lover. Rufus charmed and instructed to kill Arianna. Carnellia sends the vampire scuttling for cover with her wand of illumination. The vampire charmed Raitan to keep him safe -- he complied by tossing Gunny into Allyrion which knocked both into a rose bush. Meanwhile Elderan lays down withering arrow fire. SOMEONE kills the vampire. Vladimir's detect invisibility reveals the fleeing gaseous vampire. Elderan casts fly and brings the group into the monster's lair where, after bypassing numerous fire traps, they slain the vampire permenently. |
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Day Thirteen late |
A giant slug shows up and tries to make a meal of the party. It doesn't last long. |
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Day Sixteen late |
The party reaches the guardpost outside Erelhui-Cinlu. Raitan and Vladimir use a few cantrips to create disguises and the group beds down to recover their spells. |
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Day Sixteen later |
Three hungry subterranean lizards try to make a meal of the party. The monsters are obviously former drow mounts. They don't last long against the comined might of the party. |
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Day Seventeen early |
The party approaches the drow gate. Several party members have polymorphed themselves into appearing drow. Carnellia leads Nilorim and the others to the closed gate, demanding entrance. The males are defiant and open fire with pistol bows. Elderan places of wall of force in front of the crossbowmen to act as a shield for the party. As the party members scale the wall, anti-magic wards go off, disrupting spells. The party puts up a tremendous fight on the battlements, slaying most of the drow. Vladimir's wall of fire isolates several drow from the fight, in addition to vaporizing many others. Nilorim uses a web to foul missile fire from drow outside of melee combat. Elderan knocks the gates open and runs afoul of the captain of the watch. The General drinks of potion of giant strength and starts tearing into the heroes. I FORGET HOW HE DIED. A few drow escape into the Vault. The party captures six males who were caught in Nilorim's web. Nilorim explains the party's purpose and all the males enthusiastically ask to join the group. A know alignment reveals that most are thoroughly evil. Moments later, the group finds a number of female drow rape victims, many of whom were raped to death and some whom were priestesses of Lolth. There is huge dispute whether the party should simply slay the females or the males or all of them. Raitan decides to teach the males what it's like to be overpowered, but the drow respond with their weapons. Several party members jump in and all the males are slain. Vladimir stops Ael'Mara from killing the females, but winds up slitting the throats of all but one, Nirizza, who is not dedicated to Lolth. Nirizza accuses the party of being no better than the drow, despite their "Goodness". Carnellia attempts to sway her views. The priestess of Bast and Ael'Mara get into an arguement. Battered, the party relocates to the bluffs above the entrance to the Vault. |
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Day Fourteen "evening" |
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Day Fifteen early |
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Day Fifteen later |
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Day 16 "predawn" |
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Day 16 early |
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Day 18 late |
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Day 19 late |
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Day 22 late |
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Day 23 late |
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Day 23 later |
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Day 23 even later |
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Day 24 early |
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Day 25 early |
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Day 26 early |
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Day 26 later |
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Day 26 even later |
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