After running mundane errands and purchasing various items after their last adventure, the group resumed attacking the underdark strongholds of the drow elf invaders of Aarde. Two weeks of hiking well below the surface through a deep, wide chasm was rewarded with the discovery of a large drow city in the distance. Unfortunately, as the group advanced to examine the area, they entered a region of teleportals, which divided the party into many smaller groups, each of whom immediately faced different challenges.
Revan and Telpin found themselves facing a giantess drider, an enormous spider measuring over 20' in height, with the upper torso of a giant drow sorceress. She stood in a large chamber, surrounded by "normal" drow attendants and a couple of umber hulks, performing some unspeakably evil ritual. Telpin began his usual gnome battle song and charged the attendants, longsword in one hand, wand of lightning bolts in the other. Revan, wary of the many giant webs, elected not charge with his pegasus, but did run and attack the "black widow" head-on. Soon after, his flaming sword had burned away most of the webs around him, and first blood had been drawn on the giant drow. As an eerie green fog filled the room, the gargantuan drider attacked the paladin with her many legs, easily lifting him and biting him repeatedly with her poison fangs. But each time she wounded him, she found herself wounded as well--by her own attacks (due to a crazily expensive and powerful new magical armor Revan recently purchased). Though many of the paladin's attacks wounded the great beast, it was her own attacks that caused a great deal of her damage to herself. Telpin, meanwhile, focused his attacks on the many attendants, several of whom fell somewhat easily to his wand's lightning bolts, but most managed to heal their mistress before paying the ultimate price for their evil folly. In the end, after a protracted battle that left the heroes badly wounded, Revan defeated the giant drow, Telpin located the teleportal, and the pair returned victorious to the spot where they had begun: overlooking a great drow city perhaps two miles below the surface.
Taito, Black Eyed Bill and Aiko popped into a somewhat open area with a small stone hut in front of them and a stalactite far above in the distance. A shaft of light from the stalactite revealed that it had been hollowed out, and illuminated a drow witch flying toward what she hoped were unsuspecting victims. When her javelin of lightning bolt was dodged by all three with no seeming ill effects, the witch took cover behind a wall of force, and began lobbing her attacks at them from there, still airborne. After having taken cover in the hut, Taito hefted a great empty metal cauldron onto the roof and lept up there himself, then lobbed it (unsuccessfully) at the drow witch. Meanwhile, Black Eyed Bill was having a bit of an archery contest with a number of drow who were trying to pick off the good guys from the distance. Aiko climbed on the roof. Before she knew it, the witch, an eldrich drow knight by the name of Elaine Ereklav, found herself carrying Taito as a passenger. Though she was still flying, her difficulties soon became compounded by Aiko and Black Eyed Bill, who had both been heavily wounded but were out for revenge; each in turn had climbed Black Eyed Bill's rope to scale the wall of force, and Taito had simply jumped onto Elaine from its invisible top. Though at one point Aiko had needed to pour a potion of healing down the sea-ranger's throat, the three were able to return to the teleportal with no further difficulties.
The Clubmaster known as LeRoy Jenkins found himself with the lizardman rogue/warrior Henderson. They were in a crypt, somewhere below a temple to a spider god greater than Lolth's. Two rows of stone coffins with ornate, gem-encrusted lids stood before them. On a dias, working on a wall drawer-coffins of less elaborate departed drow were two figures. LeRoy took cover upon seeing the two, who were clothed in tattered, once-elaborate robes, and persuaded Henderson to see if he could procure some of the shiny gems. As Henderson made an unsuccessful attempt to be sneaky while using a chisel and mallet to remove some gems, the two figures silently floated closer, and a powerful lightning bolt was evaded by the two rogues and obliterated much of the stone coffin behind them. One of the figures sent a strange beam of energy from his eyes into the stone coffins, creating a temporary invisibility on the inanimate stone in the beams' path. This revealed LeRoy's position, and the other leathery-faced figure shot a beam from his finger that LeRoy narrowly dodged. LeRoy had narrowly escaped petrification. So narrowly, that the bottoms of his boots were turned to stone. Round after round of attacks and parrys followed. It seemed the two figures were amused, and mostly unaffected by the normally crippling club, crossbow and sword attacks of Henderson and LeRoy Jenkins. Perhaps the ghoulish spellcasters were toying with them. Ultimately, the heroes were able to smash the tops of a couple of the ruby and onyx-encrusted coffin lids and make off with portions of the spider designs, and escape through the same teleportal they came in from... In retrospect, uneasy feelings about the floating leather-faced robed figures could occur in the future...
Joseph and Rivet, with Mick the Gangly, instantly arrived in the entry hall of one of the great drow clans. Elaborate to a fault, the large entry featured coats of arms on every wall, as well as the tiled floor, to the family of Schmeager Friedly. Twin stairs led to a balcony above, where Schmeager herself cast invisibilty on herself before the unexpected visitors could easily notice her. Twin hallways, to the left and right, were soon occupied by pairs of drow rogue/mages, who were in the process of duplicating their relative's tactics. Joseph's own dispel magic and invisibility purge disrupted what could have been deadly surprise attacks. Schmeager cast a web spell, but Rivet dove into a stone cane stand while Mick powered through and Joseph magically transformed himself into a larger, stronger version of himself to beat the webs. Mick was able to attack Schmeager on the balcony above, since he wears stilts and uses a reach weapon. Also, using combat reflexes, he gained attacks of opportunity on several opponents, some of whom thought they were invisible and were not, thanks to Joseph. A flame strike unleashed by Joseph finished of any remaining attackers as Rivet found the teleportal and the three joined with the others.
Flegol, Buddy Nagel and Nightsong Sharpfang found themselves in a seedy part of the drow city, a dark alley behind a dark alley surrounded by ancient but run-down buildings. Movement in the shadows turned out to be nearly half a dozen skillful drow rogues, sneaking up easily on the new arrivals. Much stranger and more frightening was whiptongue dirtwalker, once known as the drow named Meaner Digs, but now transformed into a giant mole-like monster with a magical whip/tongue capable of moving at nearly normal speed through solid earth and stone. The drow rogues struck hard as the monster tunneled from below Flegol and attacked with its tongue. Flegol found himself constricted and dragged below ground into the soft earth to choke and suffocate. His great skills with the bow were rendered powerless by this attack, though he had managed to take out a couple of the rogues just prior to being dragged down. Nightsong, on her giant rodent mount Lomax, and Buddy Nagel, holy symbol in hand, dove into the soft ground after Flegol. Choking on the dirt, the two kobolds were successful in rescuing their human companion, ripping the tongue of the monster in the process. Though Meaner Digs and the surviving drow rogues fled, once Nightsong located the teleportal, they headed back, where they found they had joined the others.
Gendar the Magic, with Lola were certain they had stepped not into a teleportal, but into a great pit. They were falling down a large, round natural shaft with no end in sight. Lola grabbed Gendar and used her boots of teleport to bring them both safely to a rocky outcropping to one side. A strange, brightly multi-colored cloudlike spell or creature soon appeared just above them, and seemed to shine a spotlight on Gendar and Lola that attracted large numbers of driders to them. The driders, of course, could walk sideways or even nearly upside down with sure footing, and were exhibiting no trouble scaling down the sheer rock faces of the shaft toward the unfortunate humans, as the glowing apparation launched strange missiles of magic into the heroes with unerring accuracy. Gendar made the most of the situation by launching a pair of fireballs up into the onrushing enemy, effectively removing a score of them or more. Lola had climbed above the apparation, and launched herself from the cliff face directly into its center, falling right through it, magical swords slashing all the way. Lola then grabbed onto handholds on the opposite cliff face and looked back. The combination of these attacks resulted in the apparation ceasing to glow, with no remaining signs of its ever having existed. Meanwhile, it was raining driders, and one of the burning drider bodies knocked Gendar off of his perch. As he was falling, Lola spotted him and teleported over, using her magic boots once more. Using her gloves of shortspears as a climbing tool, she was able to grab onto a rock face while keeping a grip on Gendar. They were just feet from the bottom of the shaft. Though they were a long way from the teleportal, Lola activated her boots for the last time that day to bring the two of them back to where they had started from, and found all of the others were there.
I awarded 3,000 xp for each character that was present for the entire session (Flegol should probably really get 2,400 since Shane had to be late, but that's debateable). Everybody seemed able to keep their cool and handle tough situations pretty well. For this session, individual treasure was awarded, but it has not been divided, as the party was separated and we ran out of time, so treasure will have to be discussed again at our next game which will be in two weeks, as usual.
