Session 34: Beating a Dead Ooze

March 25, 118

The party commence their attack on the ghouls, who are trapped behind the portcullis. The ghouls charge forward as they party pelt them with ranged weapons and spells, but they are unable to get past the iron bars and simply reach out fruitlessly with their claws. As one of the ghouls is killed, the rest retreat into the room out of the party's line of sight.

Ellyanna summons a Flaming Sphere behind the portcullis and begins rolling it around the room. Controlling it blindly, she rolls it along the walls and across the room, trying to strike the ghouls. Although she makes contact a few times, hearing a pained yelp each time, at least some of the ghouls are still alive by the time the spell's duration expires.

Since the ghouls aren't coming out, the party decide they need to head in to fight them, as they don't want to leave them behind. Kaplan and Calanon lift the portcullis and step through, at which point they are charged by the undead creatures. Kaplan is temporarily paralyzed by the ghast's poisonous claws, but overall, the party are able to dispatch the weakened creatures fairly easily.

Searching the room, they find that it is very similar to the first portcullis room that they encountered. It is the same size and shape, and contains similar alcoves and disturbed coffins. Unlike that room, which was otherwise empty, this room is filled with bones and scraps of cloth. The bones seem to have been gnawed on, presumably by the ghouls. However, they do not find anything of value.

The party continue exploring the complex, heading to a door just down the hallway from the ghoul room. Opening it up, they find a large room with no other exits. The floor is littered with smashed wooden furniture, and each corner of the room contains a statue. They can't see many details from the doorway, but they can tell that the statues are of a blobby, bloated humanoid, a jet black humanoid with purplish veins running through the stone, a humanoid with a large shape coiled around it, and a rearing, elephant-like creature with six legs and two trunks. Finally, the far-left corner of the room seems to be slightly sunken, as if the ground has shifted underneath it, and a pool of opaque, black liquid seems to have collected there.

Not trusting the room, Ellyanna decides to start shooting firebolts in order to see if anything inside is actually dangerous. A firebolt directed at one of the statues has no effect, but a second firebolt directed at the black pool causes it to rear up into a gelatinous mass and lunge towards the party!

The party attack the ooze creature as it moves towards them, but it is surprisingly fast and reaches Ellyanna before she has a chance to retreat. Reaching towards her, it tries to engulf her, and only Calanon's intervention saves Ellyanna. As it is, the touch of the creature's acidic substance badly injures her and completely ruins her clothing.

The party begin fighting a retreating battle, realizing how dangerous the slime is. Kaplan and Calanon both avoid striking it with their good weapons, worried that its touch might damage or destroy them. Kaplan grabs the unconscious Ellyanna and drags her away. Once everyone is back through the door, they close it.

Unfortunately, the ooze is easily able to seep through the cracks around the door and continue attacking them. The party try to keep away from creature and attack with spells and ranged weapons as they back away. Dark Star tries to blast it away from them with an Eldritch Blast, but it seems to have anchored itself on the doorway.

Suddenly, the creature stops moving, but not trusting this turn of events, the party keep attacking. They blast away for a over a minute, gradually splattering the ooze over the walls, before considering that perhaps the creature is dead. They're still cautious, though, because half of the creature is still on the other side of the door, where they can't see it.

The bottom half of the door has already been eaten away by the ooze's acidic body, so Ellyanna and Dark Star attack the top half with Firebolts and Eldritch Blasts, until they manage to completely blast it away. Beyond, the other half of the creature seems to be unmoving as well.

Finally convinced that the slime is dead, Dark Star repeatedly hits the body with Eldritch Blasts, blowing away chunks of it until a safe path through the doorway is formed.

Session 33: Ecology of Ghouls

March 24, 118

I didn't take good notes of this session, so point form mode activate:

• After defeating the bugbears, the party need to rest, so they hide the bodies and signs of battle as best as they can and retreat back to the secret passage where the Elves are hiding.
• Based on the number of bugbears and goblins they killed, and the numbers that Feyrith told them, they believe there are still more monsters remaining.
• They aim to rest for about three hours, but during the third hour, they begin to hear footsteps from the other side of the secret passage.
• Eventually, a bugbear on the other side discovers the secret door and opens it. The party are waiting for him and attack.
• A second battle is joined, with another half-dozen bugbears and more goblin slaves.
• The party are eventually victorious, but are now very tired and injured and need to rest the night before continuing. However, they think that might be the last of the bugbears. At worst, there are probably only a few left.
• Since they still have some time left in the day, but they are too injured to explore, they spend the rest of the day searching the shrine and the nearby santified room. They don't discover anything of interest.

March 25, 118

• The next day, the party have recovered and head out to explore.
• They find a room that is blocked off by a portcullis. They discover a secret switch that unlocks it, which allows them to lift it and search the room beyond.
• Inside is a medium-sized room filled with alcoves and disturbed coffins (strewn about the room with their lids opened). There are no signs of the occupants of the coffins.
• Beyond this room, they find a secret door which leads to a second portcullis. Inside is a room containing an undead creature, a ghast.
• The party try to reason with the creature, which is extremely hungry and wants them to feed it. They get it to talk by offering it parts from one of the dead goblins. When they throw food in, several smaller creatures, ghouls, also arrive from other parts of the room to eat.
• They try to question the ghast, but its memories consist mostly of darkness and they aren't able to get much useful information out of it. They learn that it and its ghoul companions are trapped behind the portcullis, and that its earliest memory is of the shrine room, nearby.
• Having learned everything they can from the ghast, the party decide to destroy it.

Session 32: Battle of the Bugbears

March 24, 118

I didn't take good notes of this session, so point form mode activate:

• As they suspected would happen, bugbear reinforcements arrive quickly and begin attacking them.
• The enemies consist of goblins and bugbears, who arrive in waves and continually reinforce their side as the battle continues.
• At one point, the biggest, meanest-looking bugbear arrives, but Feyrith hits him with a Hold Person spell, allowing the party to dispatch him while he is paralyzed.
• At another point, a band a goblins appear from around a bend, attacking with ranged weapons and refusing to close with the party. Kaplan charges at them, triggering a pit trap right in front of them. He falls in, and spends most of the fight unsuccessfully trying to climb out.
• After the chief, the bugbear shaman also arrives and attacks the party with spells, but they kill him as well.
• Partway through the fight, a monstrous, gorilla-like creature appears out of nowhere in the party's back ranks and begins wreaking havok among the spellcasters. Although it does a lot of damage, they are eventually able to kill it.

Finally, after defeating six bugbears (not counting the original three from the storeroom), eight goblins, and one demonic ape, reinforcements stop coming and the party are victorious.