Troll Roast // Besotted at Beholder Bay
Table of Contents
Wolf’s Teeth Mountains
Troll Roast
In the midst of a battle with a troll, covered in massive blood sucking insects and roaring, grease fed flames, Geo, Hasselhoff, Uhr, and Luvon scramble for position in large roughly circular cave. Lit only by the flames licking at the trolls flesh, the party continues pouring fire on the troll, and Uhr sets up a spike growth field right behind Geo and the troll. The foot and half long giant insects not yet killed by the fire launch into the air and quickly try and attack the new warm bodies in the room. Luckily they are unable to do much to Geo, Luvon, and Hasselhoff.
The troll finally awake and in range of a threat, approaches and attacks Geo, and with two swipes of it’s massive claws nearly lays Geo out. But as the troll ends his last swipe, a rune carved on Geo’s shield blasts out with light, striking the troll and forcing it into a stupefied state. Nira takes the opportunity to take a devastating sneak attack with her short bow, nailing the troll at the point between shoulder and neck. Geo, seeing the arrow strike then sees his opportunity, and swings once, missing and decides to make use of the field of magical spikes carpeting the floor behind him. Using his runic magic, Geo grows nearly as large as the troll, and grapples it. Quickly spinning around, Geo drags the troll across the spikes, shredding it’s lower extremities.
Hasselhoff is able to heal up Geo a bit, and crush a Stirge affixed to his shoulder by ramming himself and it into a nearby wall, but is soon distracted as a massive jumble of limbs rolls into the back of the cave room and bumps into Nira, flailing against her and injuring her gravely. It appears the troll seeded the pikes of body parts outside its cave with it’s own discarded, but slowly regenerating limbs, as a makeshift trap. Luvon is able to use Burning Hands to blast both the Stirge attached to his body, as well as the Troll, still stupefied and stuck in a grapple by Geo. Luvon shouts a command and a bright, animate shard of light coheres against the back wall of the cavern. Luvon has summoned his companion Sol. Just in time, for at this moment another jumble of limbs rolls into the mouth of the cave and assaults Nira anew. Luvon is able to move to her aid, but Nira is looking bad.
Geo still tightly gripping a troll covered in flames, grimaces through the burning pain, and drags the troll around the perimeter of the field of magical spikes that Uhr put in place, fully grinding the trolls lower legs to pulp. Hasselhoff flicks a dagger out of his brace, and as it flies across the room towards a Limbjumble it grows and splits becoming a cloud of daggers swirling and slicing at the terrifying collection of body parts. Uhr senses the time is right to stike at the troll and with one final blast of energy is able to shove it out of Geo’s grip and impale its head upon a particularly large spike. The biggest threat felled, (but still aflame) the party is able to quickly mop up the remaining Limbjumbles and Stirges.
After a disgusting process of finding all the remaining troll bits and feeding them to the fire, the party is able to scour the cave complex for any valuables, and finds : 1 pair of fine leather boots that are remarkably clean, a shield with an emblem of two arrows crossed on the front, a small gold ring with a red ruby in it, a floppy grey forage cap with a small emblem of a rat on the front, a simple grey canvas sack roughly 2 feet long with a leather draw string stop, and a surprisingly sturdy stick that appears to have been severely burned, roughly a foot long.
While exploring the cave, the party is able to spot a hidden door behind the Troll’s bedding and with some work open it. Behind the door, a hallway of worked stone extends deeper into the mountain. After surpassing a pit trap in the hallway, they find a beautifully bas relief bronze door depicting a group of 12 dwarves battling a stone giant. Runes in Dwarvish across the top of the Door say “Unyielding as the stone.” In the center of the door, one of the dwarf’s shields is revealed to be a knob. Geo attempts to open the door with the knob and is promptly stabbed in the palm with a hidden needle. Poisoned and falling to the ground paralyzed Geo urges his party on. Unfazed the rest of the group finds a small room with two sarcophagi and an alter. On the alter, more Dwarvish runes “Timbeck and Fulgrin Stonehammer lie here. They gave their lives so that we might live. Jomar guide them to the halls.”
Hasselhoff summons an unseen servant and uses it to push open the two sarcophagi, finding bones and the dusty remnants of a hammer and pick in each. But, hidden among the dust at the foot of each is a last gift to the fallen. Inside Timbeck’s sarcophagus , a glass bottle with amber colored fluid inside and a note: “To ensure you can always slip out and find your way to a proper pint”. Inside Fulgrin’s, a small red box with a simple latch on the front. “No need to chase it anymore Fulgrin, the dragon comes to you.”
Landfall
Outside of Stallenor’s house, the party prepares to make entry. They discuss their plans, and the nearby goblin chews on his cigar, occasionally making unhelpful suggestions. Dresden decides to try going up through one of the taller buildings on either side of the house, and Grizz decides to go for a straight climb.
Grizz easily makes it up to the bit of roof over the first story and starts listening at the second-story window, which has been covered up with newspaper and the like. Meanwhile, Dresden pays a gold to go up through a Dwarf’s home. The Dwarf convinces his elderly upstairs neighbor, Griselda, to let Dresden onto her roof. She throws in a Funkleberry danish for Dresden because she’s sweet.
After making it to the second-story roof, Dresden drops a rope for the rest of the party. Everyone starts climbing up, and a hearty round of debate on how to enter through the window starts. Dresden decides to take the initiative and moves to swing through the window, feet first. He crashes into a small creature dressed like a butler on the other side and they fall into a tangle.
Fen rushes into the trophy room and swiftly plants a blade into the back of the butler-kobold’s skull, freeing his companion. Just as Dresden starts standing up, a red-sleeved hand emerges from a nearby closet gripping a small shadowy bottle, and a voice cries out:
“I’VE GOT A WEAPON AND I’M NOT AFRAID TO FUCKING USE IT!”
Heimer dashes up to the door, preparing his spear for an attack should the closeted enemy emerge. Dresden shoulder-checks the door, and the foe yelps as his arm snaps cleanly off. There is a wooshing noise, and fire shoots out from underneath the closet door as something explodes inside. The shadowy bottle drops, just barely escaping Heimer’s hands, and shatters on the ground, releasing its monstrous contents.
A translucent specter emerges, and the party notices that it seems afraid of the last rays of light coming through the window. Fen acts quickly, activating the driftglobe with the command word: “Vol”. The shadow escapes the trophy room, leaving the party to quickly put out the fire that had started in the closet.
After looting the room and finding a black and white stone idol in the shape of a spider, along with a note reading:
“speak nadlath, to reach me or Melodia”.
Exiting the trophy room, Heimer disables a set of trapped stairs, and the party heads into a ransacked kitchen. They find an empty bowl labeled “Sir Noms-A-Lot”, and a kitchen table surrounded by chairs. Oddly, one of the chairs is chained to a nearby wall.
Sixela decides to produce a Goodberry, and drops it into the empty food bowl. The chained chair totters over, and a tongue emerges from its seat to lap up the magical treat. Sixela recognizes this creature as some kind of domesticated mimic, and finds a nearby rubber ball to distract the creature. It happily turns into a beach-basket and slobbers all over the toy as the party slips by.
The party moves on into a hallway with two doors. Heimer uses a key he pulled off of the dead butler to open one, while Fen goes through the other. As Fen enters a bedroom, he sees the shadow crouched over the desiccated body of a red-robed humanoid. Fen swings the light of the driftglobe towards it, and it flees through a tiny hole into the adjacent study, launching an attack on Heimer. Simultaneously, a severed arm with a gauntlet leaps out from under the bed, assaulting Fen. Another severed arm emerges from under the desk in the study, targeting Heimer. The party dispatches both arms, but the shadow slips away into a hole in the floor. The party, undeterred, solves a puzzle to unlock Stallenor’s desk and uncovers a note pointing to a Collegium Arcanum professor’s involvement and a warning not to trust Inquisitor Kane.
Exiting the house, they speak with the goblin Glub-glub, who implores them not to walk through the Gilded Gutter at night. He invites them to stay with him and his family, and even offers them a quest.
The Underdark
The party had barely found the time to divvy up the booty they “liberated” from the hold of ooze-infested ghost ship when they were ambushed by a mob of vicious merrow! Almost twenty of the thrashing, gnashing, harpoon-weilding creatures descended upon them like a hurricane from hell but King Knut used his barbaric might and Artair used his just plain bear-ic strength to row them away at speed. Cardigan provided Artair with a buff to make him more buff, Ta’ahsu sawed throguh a harpoon’s tow rope that had threatened to drag their boat to its doom, and Toof did her best to scare the derrow off while suffering a sudden coughing fit.
Just as the party was starting to believe they’d gotten away safely, two plesiasaurus-riding derrow burst through the lake’s surface and sped toward them with astonishing speed. Captain Churg screamed for everyone to brace for a fight, but the new attackers suddenly broke off their pursuit and fled in opposite directions and our heroes watched as a large, tentacled creature swam beneath them, driving the pursuers off before returning to their boat.
This new arrival began to “speak” psychically to the party members in a soft, feminine voice, beseeching them to come to her aid and retrieve her stolen child. After much deliberation, the adventurers decided to follow the creature, which Ta’ahsu identified as an aboleth or, rather, the illusory image of an aboleth back to her lair. On the way, Captain Churg spoke of the legendary Lady of the Lake who was said to give great boons to those who earn her favor and exact terrible vengeance on those who cross her. It seemed that they were about to find out if the legend was true.
They sailed to a partially submerged onyx tower surrounded by the floating corpses of dozens of uniformed humanoids. The dead men and women wore blue and gray armor with an emblem depicting a grinning skull with a dagger in its teeth, and they all bore signs of death by blade and arrow, as if something had caused them to turn on one another.
Inside the tower, the party finally met the Lady of the Lake, who was indeed an aboleth who lay dying in her nest, pierced by dozens of javelins, spears, and arrows. She said that warriors from the surface world had attacked her and stolen her only egg, and that if the party could track down the egg and bring it with them to release it into the Sterling Sea up above, they would be rewarded with riches collected by the aboleth people over eons. The party accepted the strange, dying creature’s offer and sailed on until they finally reached the bustling port town of Beholder Bay.
After convincing Churg to hang around in case they needed to make a hasty exit, the group and their brave captain headed over to The Crooked Bone, a rowdy dockside tavern full of travelers from both land and lake. They ordered a round of huge, ostentatious fruity drinks called Beholder Bombs from the bartender, a myconid fellow who seemed quite willing to part with important information for the right price, and learned that a group of warriors bearing the skull and dagger emblem on their coats and armor had come into the Bone, and a few of them were still drinking at a corner table.
The party grabbed a table of their own and formulated a plan: Artair would summon a giant toad outside using his special cloak Sir Varion’s Mantle and another, more charismatic party member would lure the leader of the egg thieves outside to be devoured by it. As Artair summoned his toad outside, the rest of the party sent a round of drinks over to the remaining warriors, who they came to find out were part of a mercenary band called the Restless Dead, and when the bartender pointed over to show them who had been so generous, Toof shot them her most flirtatious wink. Emboldened by free booze and tiefling advances, the leader of the sellswords came over and introduced himself as Duran. While Duran made nice and explained that he and his troops were down here to snag an exotic egg for a wealthy collector of rarities, the group noticed that he had left a backpack consisting of a sizeable metal container with straps in the care of his soldiers. Cardigan detected a soupçon of abjuration magic emanating from the pack and, deducing that the egg was being held within, improvised a bold maneuver.
“Want to go somewhere more private?” he said to Duran.
As Cardigan and Duran exited the Crooked Bone to get to know one another more intimately at the inn across the street, Toof and King Knut decided to distract the remaining Restless Dead by starting a barroom brawl. THey succeeded in distracting Duran’s troops from what was happening outside, namely Duran himself being swallowed whole by a giant toad. Ta’ahsu, seizing his opportunity, cast Suggestion on the Restless Dead troop carrying the container-satchel and convinced him that Duran needed the egg for safekeeping, even during the throes of passion. The hobgoblin sellsword set out toward the inn with his precious cargo as the party decided what their next move should be.