"Hah! You dropped your weapon, ha-ha!"
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Vingold lashes his whip, attempting to trip the green soldier, but he hops over it easily.
He kneels down to pick up his weapon, opening himself up to an attack from Yizzik.
"Damn lizard, yer not leavin' here alive," the leader says in Undercommon, slamming his axe for Yizzik's head. He manages to catch the side of the lizardman's face with the stony head of the hammer, cracking a bone in Yizzik's cheek.
Poe raises Olivia and fires a shot into green. He grits his teeth and lets fly a bolt that whips past Hinata and sinks into the duergar like he'd planned it all along.
Vingold tries for another trip!
Yizzik snarls as he takes down one duergar only to finally have his defenses properly breached. The attack sends him reeling, stumbling back a step or two and forces the reptile to shake his head to clear the ringing of his ears before slowly turning his eyes to the leader. They now practically glowed amber with a savage fury behind them only barely restrained.
"Draconic: Making me mad is not something you want to do..." he growled in his native tongue, coming in hard after his larger enemy
While she hated herself for it she was still far too shaken from the last blow to get in close, another rock would have to do for now.
We should have gone home. She whines inside her head.
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Yizzik takes down both the final duergar foot soldier as he slices his axe across his neck before he can even get to his feet. Hinata and Poe unleashed a combination attack on the leader, with both the stone and bolt pelting its grey fleshy exterior, and Yizzik seals the deal with a powerful chop across the leader's face, spilling blood all over the rocky ground.
The dwarven captives chained to the pillar cheer as much as they can given their current condition. "Wells it's about damn time sum help showed up! Come on, get us outta here!"
The captives - three dozen of them in total - are all chained to the column with a locking slave collar.
Taking a seat to catch his breath, Yizzik could only gently rub at his cracked jaw. He could feel the sting of pain beneath his scales, knowing he'd either require more magic or time for the pain to fade. He'd watch as his companions worked to free the dwarves and collect whatever the duergar had on them. While this happened, he'd take the time to calm his nerves, pulling his violin free from his bag, he'd play to calm himself after the intense battle.
Hinata would move to Yizzik's side offering him one of her potions before moving over to the captives to try and talk to them so Vingold could free them without interruption.
"Did they take anyone else?"
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One of the dwarves nods at Hinata. "Yeah, they took about two dozen others. Saw 'em headin' in the direction of the Redoubt." He pulls desperately at his collar as Vingold is silent. "Come on, yer both dwarves, can't ya see we're strugglin' here? Let's get back to Davarn and have a round!" He pleads with Poe and Vingold. "Oh, but I'm broke. The filthy duergar musta had some money stashed around here." He looks in the direction of a locked iron chest on one of the frightened fire beetle's backs.
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After spending a few minutes unlocking the silver collars from each of the captives, they graciously thank you and ask for your assistance in returning to Davarn. Vingold also picks open the iron chest to reveal two potions of cure moderate wounds, two potions of lesser restoration, a jar of restorative ointment, and 312 gold pieces.
With the duergar band defeated and the Redoubt cleared of all undead, Delbera's request of finding her dear axe Firebrand seems like the next logical step. But first, you make for Davarn with the captives in tow.
The townspeople eagerly embrace you as heroes, and the Lucky Imp Inn offers you free room and board for the next month. The Temple of Torag also offers you a discount of 10% on any spellcasting services.
The Mayor provides you with a reward of 3,000 gold pieces for the return of sixty captives. The proud dwarves make for the Imp, eager to chase down the past few days of anguish with rum and ale.
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Following your triumphant return to Davarn, you've spent a few days exchanging items, honing your skills, and learning what you could about the Blighted Path. Erna Stoneheart tells you of its location and history, that one of Davarn's oldest mines eventually hit a vein of strange stone that no one could identify. When touched, the stone would drain the warmth from miners' bodies. Strange creatures crawled up from the darkest shafts and natural caverns the mines joined, snatching workers and dragging them away in the shadows. Eventually it was discovered that those who had worked those mines rose as hungry undead after death, and the people of Davarn sealed up "the Blighted Path," as they’d come to call it.
Tasked with retrieving Lady Delbera Axebringer's beloved axe, Firebrand and putting an end to the resurrection of Axebringer descendants as undead, you've determined the next logical step to be to make for the mines, find the weapon, and destroy the necromancer who had taken it.
For the more material hungry amongst you, Mayor Bensik tells you she will provide anyone who recovers Firebrand with 5,000 gold pieces!
Armed with knowledge of its location, you make your way back towards Firebrand's Redoubt. About an hour down a side tunnel, you come across a stout, iron gate leading into the old mine. The door's padlock has been smashed open. How will you proceed?
-Posted with Wayfinder
Hinata tries to enjoy any time she can back home but knowing they will be leaving again soon has her a little on edge, despite her fear she knows she's going to follow her friends.
"Can anyone see or have a light? We can still pick one up before we head down right?"
Yizzik felt stronger than ever after his rest, pride welling in his new armored appearance that reminded him of his teacher. With the symbol of Apsu now emblazoned upon his breast plate and shoulders, the armored reptile took point to lead his friends into what they had learned to be a cursed path.
"Don't worry, Hinata. Just be ready with any bombs in case this path proves as dangerous as we'be heard," he'd reply as the torch sprung to life. His darkvison wasn't the best either, but the light provide more comfort he felt than anything else.
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You head through the gate and into the first passage. Hinata refers to the map you found in Firebrand's Redoubt and finds the correct way through the entry tunnels. The landscape is barren and desolate during your half hour trip, and many of the clean, worked tunnels occasionally give way to crumbling, chalky stone shot through with sickly black veins of an alien mineral. A damp coldness seems to roll off the walls, and the musty stench of long-ignored decay fills the air.
Suddenly, Yizzik sees a glob of sticky tar shoot though the air and sploosh onto the ground in front of him. Luckily, whatever threw it didn't aim well enough. Turning to look at the source of the tar, a trio of ghoulish humanoids appear out of the darkness, bearing sharp teeth and lumbering towards you.
The blue and green-eyed ghouls shamble up towards Yizzik-Tank and stretch their lanky heads out to bite him, but instead break their teeth on his armor.
Poe takes a short step towards Red, firing multiple bolts at his target.
Vingold looks at the crap splattered on the ground. "Huh. That's what your brains will look like soon."
Lilly lets her wand of shield of faith side into her hand, and activates it on herself, upping AC to 18.
She draws her whip afterwards.
Yizzik hissed loud, the sound echoing in the cavern as the enemies came in hard. He'd meet them head on, ready to be a wall between them and his companions. He'd watch as the creature bit in vain at his armor, already seeing the benefit of his new metal shell. He would risk them finding a weakness though, quickly raising his adamantine axe high to chop into its skull.
Hinata threw a bomb at the (blue) creature attacking Yizzik, able to hit his (green) ally as well made them an ideal target.
Lilly steps 5 feet south east.
"Time for munchies will soon be over, freakazoid."
Stepping back, Poe unleashes a second pair of shots. His shots go wide, and don't come close to hitting green.
Vingold uses his reach to assist Yizzik with his attack!
Since Lilly was attempting to knock the first target over Hinata would focuses her attack on the furthest (blue) enemy. She'd switch to rocks to try and preserve the rest of her bombs for the no doubt future enemies on the road.
Continuing his onslaught, the undead would prove ineffective against the armored lizard. Letting loose a roar as he swung his Ace, he let the call of his ancestors and draconian lineage out in that battle cry as he sought to end the ghouls attacking him.
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Lilly manages to grab green with her whip and throws him to the ground. The rest of the group doesn't have as much luck, with both of Poe's bolts and Hinata's stone flying deep into the cavern. With the help of Vingold's whip, Yizzik manages to strike down the blue ghoul, then turns and swings his axe down on the green one, cutting its arm off cleanly and spraying the ground with oozy ichor.
Green stands up , and tries to bite
Vingold continues his aid: its hard for him to target undead.
Lilly cracks her whip again.
"Hey freakazoid, no getting up now."
Seeing a chance to end the creature in its attempt to rise, the reptile would attempt to strike at its still prone form before he could stand.
Poe ejects the boxy case from the bottom of Olivia and drops a handful of bolts into it before sliding it back into his crossbow.
"Just stay down!" She vents aloud to the creature as she hurls another stone towards it.
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Lilly fails to trip the ghoul, but it's of little consequence, since Hinata scores a direct hit with her pebble and throws it hard enough to pierce into the ghoul's corrupted brain, ending him.
Searching the corpses, you find the following
3x potion of greater magic fang
3x potion of inflict moderate wounds
2x tanglefoot bag
612 gp
You locate the tracks of what could only be a large pack beetle nearby. Do you follow them?
From the cavern, the tunnels continue to extend southwest further into the desolate underground lands.
"Ah fine warm up, if'n there can be fer what we do." Poe chuckles, lighting his pipe and taking a few puffs as he helps police the bodies for loot.
"Every'n healthy? We need ta be on our way."
"I'm all good, how about everybody else?" Vingold says as he pulls out his healing wand.
"Something tells me this is only the beginning," the reptile would say, giving a sigh as his adrenaline calmed after the battle. Taking a look around, Yizzik would find the trail of a large beetle, curiously following it with his eyes for a moment before calling out to his companion. "Look at this. Think it's more duergar?"
"Huh? Oh, yeh, ah s'pose we'd pursue them. Lead on." he says, having missed the tracks.
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Yizzik follows the pack beetle tracks down a small tunnel and at a dead end, he finds the carapace of said beetle. Inside is something much more benign than evil, dark dwarves: Loot! He finds a crate containing 10 vials of alchemist's fire, 3 more tanglefoot bags, and 4 vials of soul stimulant.
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The old carved out mine shafts eventually open up a dark, winding path dotted with a strange glowing ore. The becoming increasingly darker and the air more and more stale as you move on.
The map from the Redoubt is proving to be helpful, and you're sure you're on the correct path to Phaedextrin's Maw, home of the necromancer who started all of this.
You've been traveling about 16-17 hours now. Do you risk looking for somewhere away from the Darklands denizens to rest for the "night" (it's always dark down here!), or press on and risk fatigue?