5e D&D Dwimmermount Session 12 - Paulo Must Die!

The party once again descend into the belly of the mountain. Their chatter is pulled up short by the discovery of severed orc heads sat in front of each statue in the entrance chamber. These heads show signs of combat, and are a couple of days old based on the smell. The party decide this is the handy work of the dwarves they met in their last foray.

Their own map once again comes in handy as they decide to avoid the central corridors and work their way back to the caves via the norther

n rooms, partially to avoid the orcs. They reach the area with the entrance to the caves without incident and a quick check of the map reveals a door they’ve not tried. Bittersalt in her usual style throws open the door, revealing a crumbling library room which has mostly been cleared out. However a quick a search reveals three interesting items, a handwritten copy of Ancient & Worthy Arts Of War, a set of rules for a precursor to Dragonchess and an arcane scroll of dispel magic. The group remember that the ghosts were playing some sort of chess-like game, and decide to return to them later. The fighters, who could all benefit from reading the manual set it aside for later use.

They approach the caves very cautiously, but find the first chambers empty. Returning to the lair of the giant crab spiders, they attempt to burn them out again by torching the massive of webs that cover the area. Nothing emerges, but the sound of bones and a few coins falling to the floor as the bundles of the dead unravel.

The chamber called by the kobold ‘the moon pool’ lies ahead, and this intriguing and unusual chamber does indeed contain a pool of the purest water the characters have ever seen. The party spot a hole in the roof of the cave, some 50 feet above them, from which sunlight comes in. While the party are interested, their nerves are a little on edge so they decide to return to the cave when they feel the region is safer so they press on, straight into an ambush.

Paulo is the only one in the party spot the kobolds and spiders hiding within the next cave. With a warning shout he hurls a sling stone at a spider that’s sprung out from the deep recesses of  stone but in his panic misses. A swarm of kobolds surround the party, while a couple of giant spiders crawl across the walls to them. This time however the party are ready, armoured in superior protection and better trained they quickly dispatch the kobolds and spiders with fairly minimal injuries. Flandar the warlock wished to try out the dagger he’d taken from the fight with the shadow demon, but finds the blade didn’t appear to do anything special and it almost seemed disappointed in how it was used.

Statues of dwarves fill the next beautiful cave. It’s like a cemetery, except the dwarves are all young and appear unhurt. Brother Spenzar realises that the dwarves are aligned in a grid, and that 30 to 50 dwarves are missing. This room proves to be extremely puzzling for the party, who question Errol about his childhood. Errol of course is foundling, left at an orphanage and knows nothing of his dwarven heritage. There is a distinct feeling of unease, especially since Errol has start casting arcane spells; something no dwarf has ever done before. Bittersalt and the others suspect that these dwarves are somehow connected to the kobolds that infest Dwimmermount.

With no real conclusions, they push on. From up a steep slope the voice of a dwarf came, ‘who goes there?’. The dwarf beyond, who called himself Gundrun is a little unhinged. He talked about his children. He asked Errol if he had a child, and that if he did he didn’t need to worry as Gundrun with the queen’s help could fix them. With growing fear, the party knew that whoever this Gundrun was, he was responsible in someway for the kobolds. They drew their weapons and attacked.

The dwarf was surrounded by kobolds, but with more room to maneuver Errol’s fire magic immediately started to remove foes from the field of battle. Calphis and Paulo stayed at the back while everyone else moved in. Then from the dark corridor beyond a hideous voice called out ’Gundrun! Why are you disturbing my work?! Gundrun you little worm! What are you doing?’ and with that, reality split in front of them and a vast, fat spider with too many glowing eyes crawled out of the tear. Before the party was the Spawn of Arach-Nache and queen to the kobolds of Dwimmermount.

The party immediately throw everything they have at the creature, who bites Errol with it’s poisonous beak-mouth. His dwarven resilience protects him from the worst of the damage though and the returning attacks and spells do 61 points of damage in a single round of combat. 3rd level characters can start to put the pain on big monsters.

The spider reappears and bites Paulo

The queen slips back into the ethereal realm, but not before summoning four giant spiders in her place. The party are in combat in numerous spots in the cavern, with Calphis casting a sleep spell that targets the spiders, Zoilus engaging the dwarven fighter and Bittersalt and Errol switching between the two.

The queen returns and attacks Bittersalt, whose new found parrying skills win the day. Zoilus throws himself on the back of the beast in a frothing rage. Again they party score vicious wounds against the demonic spider, with waves of magic missiles from Calphis’ wand hurting it. Again it phases out of reality. Most of the kobolds are asleep or dead, with Flandar dispatching anything still breathing and Calphis trusting his armour and getting in close, leaving Paulo to hurl sling shots from the back. It’s then that spider thing appears, and sinks it’s horrible fangs into the lad, pumping venom into his small frame. Paulo is dying and trapped behind the enormous bulk for the spider. Immediately everyone swings round and attacks the spawn, and thankfully do enough combined damage to cause it to be sucked back into the abyss. Brother Spenzar leaps to the boys aid, and keeps him from death’s door. It was very, very close.

The Spawn Of Arach-Tache is dragged back to the Abyss

We left it there. We’ve got a new space to play in, which is well away from the 40k’ers who were having a loud interclub (HATE vs Titans vs Overlords) drinking/gaming match. I’m pleased to say HATE came last on points and 1st on booze consumed, as always. Anyway the space is really very cool, if on that particular night a little smelly and can fit four RPG groups. We’re expecting there to be 2-3 regular groups now, so this is very welcome. Everyone in our group are definitely becoming friends, and this leads to a lot of chat before and during the game. While a part of me wants to focus the group on the adventure because there is so much ‘cool shit’ ahead, roleplaying really is a social thing and I’ve really fallen on my feet with my players.

Our new RPG space, the 'cavern bar' at Bethnal Green Working Men's Club

That all said and done, I’m very much looking forward to the next session, and the revelations it may bring.