Spider's Web

 

November 23, 2020

 

They descend after the drider.  The air walk is still going but they also take the time to use some other longer lasting buff spells.  As they airwalk down the shaft, several runes are noticed.  Volhoric is called forward.  He finds them insulting as he scratches the surface of several runes.  Sparks pitifully fall from the runes as the magic drains.  The next one is much the same.  Then Volhoric is at the bottom.  He comes out into a caves about twenty five feet across.  The exit is filled with webs.  Ceiling to floor, filled with webs.  The ceiling is about fifteen feet up, so it's a lot of webs.  The group comes down and Volhoric tells them to be ready.  He walks forward, small bursts of fire, no bigger than his thumb, dancing around his hand.  Just before he snaps his fingers to light the webs, he sees it.  Boxes suspended in the middle of the webs.  He pauses to look at it.  Then he asks Raz to come cut the webs to it.  

Raz nods and moves forward.  A few swings the webs prove to be resistant but he merely adjusts his angle.  He can't come at them at certain angles or they catch his weapon for a heartbeat or two.  Definitely bad in combat but he keeps cutting.  Volhoric is there when he cuts out one of the boxes.  It's made out of layered paper.  Volhoric moves off to the side and cuts it open, seeing the powder inside.  He tests it then spits it out.  

 

"I don't know which spider it's from but it's poison.  Inert now but activated by fire to become a poison cloud.  Save me a few more."  

 

"And me," says Drewgan.  

 

Knowing he doesn't have to be as careful or slice them out anymore, Raz goes to town cutting into the webs.  When he reaches the halfway point, the bolt and arrow start flying.  Most bounce off his armor but a few nick and scratch him.  Then the drider emerges from the web, tries to bite and slash him, and retreats.  Nope, not having that.  The webs are soon cut down to reveal the ambush.  

 

Honestly, the group is insulted.  Sure, the magic wands some of the drow are using hit and cause acid damage.  A few of the acid globs even last behind the first hit.  Then there was a rod that shot five types of damage globs out!  Raz lost count how many times the cloak of displacement saved him.  Globes of energy passed through his image and splattered on the wall, causing acid, heat, cold, and even force damage!  There was one drow, who turned out to be an alchemist, that did present a threat.  The bombs he threw exploded and several found Raz, despite the cloak.  Those hurt!  By the time Raz went to the alchemist and attacked, half the other drow had already fallen.  After two hits, the alchemist had enough and teleported away.  That's cheating!  Raz was consoled by the others, who saw it, that it was a short range teleport and they would see the alchemist again.  

Lightning exploded from the end of the hammer!  Dakxer had yet to use the full extent of the lightning and realized he could do it again, even more powerfully.  He did!  Sadly, half the drow were able to dodge completely out of the way of both hits.  Those that couldn't?  Crispy fried.  For a second, Dakxer could only marvel at the hammer before moving forward to attack the ones who dodged.  

 

Shyrrik annoyance didn't last long.  Drewgan had meant well and by putting up the wind wall, the drow couldn't shoot at them anymore.  But also his own shots were deflected.  And to move to the other side of the wall removed the benefit of it.  However, Shyrrik couldn't help on this side of it.  Besides, the wind picked up his cloak and unfurled it out behind him!  It probably looked bad ass.  Then his arrows took down several of the drow.  He kept getting distracted by things, though, and his shots would be slightly off more than he wanted to admit.  This fight might not have cause to worry but the next one might.  

 

Raz had souls following him around.  Or coming to him.  Or he called them?  He wasn't sure how it happened but ever since that demon had pushed souls into him and burned him, he sensed the souls.  He was hoping to find them peace but he also hoped that they could help.  He wanted to know what was happening and sent a soul into a drow to find out more.  Someone wanted to question them anyway.  The soul didn't manage to soul burn the drow but Raz did receive a vision of someone tied to an altar about to be sacrificed.  He didn't know the time but he did recognize the High Mage, and this spurred him on to keep fighting!  

 

Drewgan knew the group had things handled so when only a few remained, he decided to scout ahead.  The corridor they had blocked was free of webs and he went to the corner and looked down the hallway and into the room.  And into the eye of the Beholder.  Literally.  The beholders they had met were here!  He tried talking to the one and almost convinced it to let them pass but it turns out another was there.  And now they were fighting beholders.  Drewgan scrambled back as the beholder moved forward into the corridor.  The rest of the group was splitting up the treasure, well the treasure that Volhoric hadn't called dibs, when Drewgan comes back, warning them of beholders.  

This was a much tougher fight.  The beholders used their central eye to stop magic from working but closed it for their attacks.  At first, it was minor hits, causing cold or fire damage.  A few times, it felt like being punched.  When the beholders got hit hard or lost their central eye, though, the other eyes came out to play and were brutal.  Eye beams that caused necrotic damage.  Enough that only a year ago, it would have dropped them but they could keep going until Dakxer could heal them.  Drewgan decides to try and flank the beholders.  He turns into an earth elemental, create an air pocket in his form, puts Dakxer and Marcus in it, then glides through the earth.  Dakxer got too excited to flank the beholders so instead of coming out as a group, he activated his ring and rushed out into the room to hit the two beholders.  Only to find out there were two more beholders.  He blasted them with lightning but it just seemed to make them more mad.  Drewgan didn't want to come out into sight of the beholders but did put up a wall of ash so they couldn't see Dakxer.  Then grabbed them again and took them to the other exit from the beholder room.  

Raz, Shyrrik, and Volhoric are a force working together.  Volhoric or Shyrrik would take out the central eye then Raz would go forward and slice and dice.  It's a good thing the rings allowed Dakxer to heal through them.  And that they had a lot of heal potions!  The beholders might not be able to suppress the group's magic for long before that ability was cut out of them but the other eye beams hurt!  When the first beholder went down, the group cheered but knew they had more to do.  They pressed forward, again working together to get rid of the central eye of another beholder then slice and dice it more.  

 

Drewgan dropped the two off out of the beholder room and then went to see if he could help the others.  Marcus and Dakxer stood in the hallway gathering their wits and breath before trying to flank the beholders.  Then they realized the hallway where they stood went into a room.  Looking closer, a chapel or a full on temple.  To Lloth.  The spider motif was obvious.  And the drow matron, across the room and standing over a body tied to altar, didn't bode well.  Had they just found the High Mage?  Would they be too late?  And seeing more drow, as well the alchemist that got away, can only the two of them do it?

 

Nope.  

 

Dakxer threw a blade barrier up to block the drow from getting to them.  Hoping that was enough, Marcus and Dakxer looked toward the beholders again.  Teleport.  Of course, the drow can teleport.  The drow just appeared and started slicing into Marcus.  Dakxer healed him but not sure how much they could do.  Then the earth swallowed the drow.  A form appeared from the wall, grabbed the drow, and pulled him into the wall.  Drewgan then let go of the drow, leaving him in the wall.  It worked!  The drow was caught.  Surprisingly, though, not dead for he was undead.  Drewgan couldn't help but grin, knowing that he would be trapped like that for ever, possibly, unable to do anything else.  But the group had to get back.  Volhoric had been hit by a beam that was slowing turning him to stone and the others were wounded and low on heal potions.  

 

The whole group faced down the final two beholders.  Eye beams caused burns, cold, or necrotic damage.  Raz's body was pushed to its limits as he took massive trauma only to have it disappear five heartbeats later.  They cut down the third beholder and turned to the fourth.  It gets more mad, eye beams shooting everywhere.  With all of them focused on it, though, soon it is dead as well.  Volhoric manages to push back on the magic, perhaps helped by the death of the beholder, and doesn't turn to stone.  

 

They know they will only have a few moments before the drow attack.  

 

23,333 xp

 

GM Notes

• I didn't think to have the drow start the webs on fire.  
• I like that.  I can't think of everything but can retcon the reason why they didn't.
• They were arrogant and thought the party would burn it, which to be fair they almost did. 
• If they burned it, the poison wouldn't carry to the party as well as if it started on their end. 
• Still a few d20Pro issues.  :( 
• Better but not great.  Mainly networking issues  Again, there is a fix but no build for the mac.
• Really, what I have figured out is that d20Pro is equally awesome and annoying. 
• Awesome because when it is working, it does so much of the work for me in tracking bad guy hit points, tracking position and more. 
• Annoying because when I come to rely on it and it fails, it slows or stops the whole game down. 
• I found out that maptools still exists, I thought it didn't, and I had used that a decade ( :O :O  :O  ) ago. 
• When using that, I only used it for maps and tracked everything else by hand.  
• I might have to relook into this as an option.
• There were several bad tactics on my part with the beholders.
• Sure, as with the drow, I can explain it but it was still bad.
• In this case, the beholders should have shut their central eye, attacked with their eyestalks, then opened it at the end. 
• Having said that, it probably would have only worked for a round or two.  Maybe a crucial round or two, but they soon cut out all of the central eyes!
• I cannot tell you how many charm/dominate eye beams missed!  Some due to the cloak of displacement but a lot due to bad rolls.  That would have changed things a lot! 
• The bad french accent for the drow worked.  
• On a few levels.  First, they did know who was speaking based on the voice, so I liked that.  
• Two, it was comical enough that they almost laughed, especially at the first fight. 
• We ended on a cliff hanger at that point in the combat.
• I must be doing okay because the players didn't realize it was past ten!  Most had lost time. 
• They understood the need to stop but were still not wanting to do so! 
• I'm really liking working in the new classes the players took for their characters.  I think it gives a lot more depth to them.   

 

 

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