OAWYM: Everybody Must Get Stoned

Game Date: 5/27/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 29
Module: Scourge of the Slave Lords
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Byzun (Gary) - Human Sorcerer
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Robb (Daniel) - Human Rogue
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin
Xevrick (Graham) - Elf Mystic

The Session:
Continuing through the dungeon we entered last session.  We went through a few more halls until we reached a room containing five gnolls and three hyenas.  We made short work of them and continued through the door on the other side.  After a few more hallways, we went down some stairs and reached an unusual room.

The room was filled with some sort of weird goo that reminded us marshmallow creme.  There was a one-foot-wide path above the goo, leading from one side of the room to the other.  Halfway through the room was a wall of lightning.  We considered several possible ways of getting through the lightning wall.  Robb and Halfbeard decided to backtrack a bit to see if we'd missed any side passages, while the rest of us stayed in the room and pondered the puzzle.

Robb and Halfbeard encountered a little guy who turned out to be a Leprechaun named Darby, who agreed to accompany them back to the rest of the party.  Meanwhile, Xevrick tried walking through the lightning wall, taking some damage but not having any additional trouble.  Val and Byzun followed.  Then Halfbeard, Robb, and Darby reached the room, and followed us through the lightning wall.

Darby panicked at the lightning and fell into the goo.  Halfbeard jumped in after him.  It turned out the goo was not dangerous, and you could even breathe under there.  In fact, that was the real solution to the puzzle - the lightning wall didn't damage you while under the goo.  While down there, Halfbeard found a magic sword sheathed in an invisible scabbard.

We exited up the stairs on the far side of the room, and Xevrick used magic to clean the goo off everyone.  A few halls later, we found an empty room with only one interesting feature.  In the center of the room, a rope hung from the ceiling.  Most of the party stood in the hall while Byzun pulled on the rope.  The floor folded away, revealing a pit of corrosive liquid, and a secret door opened on the far wall.

Between Byzun's winged boots and Halfbeard's flying broom, we managed to get the party through the secret door.  A couple more halls, and we found a room containing two statues of ropers.  Well, we thought they were statues, but they were actually real ropers with stoney skin.  Byzun started the battle by casting Reduce on one roper. It lessened his damage slightly, but these were still some tough opponents.

Each roper had five attacks per turn - four tentacles with a very long reach, and one bite.  They could also petrify their opponents, a fate which befell several of us.  Val was the first to get petrified, followed by Byzun.  Xevrick tried to stay out of their range and attack with spells, but he misjudged the distance and got petrified as well.  Robb took lethal damage and failed three death saves.

Darby summoned a rainbow bridge, and yelled for us to flee with him.  Only Halfbeard was still standing at that point, but he managed to pull the petrified Byzun with him through Darby's portal.  The Leprechauns restored Byzun and allowed them to rest for a couple of days in their realm.  Then they assembled a Leprechaun rescue party (we all got to build Leprechaun characters for this one battle), and everyone came back to our plane. 

By this time one of the ropers had wandered off.  The rescue party blasted the remaining roper with their most powerful spells, taking it out quickly.  Then the Leprechauns used restoration spells on Xevrick and Val, returning them to normal.  Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything for Robb.  They let us hang out with them for a while, and offered to sell us their wares.

As soon as we all felt ready to continue adventuring, we ended the session.

OAWYM: Working In The Salt Mines

Game Date: 5/13/2017
Location: The Game Keep
Campaign: OAWYM, Session 28
Module: Scourge of the Slave Lords
System: D&D 5e
DM: Rusty

The Party:
Byzun (Gary) - Human Sorcerer
Halfbeard (Cliff) - Dwarf Fighter
Robb (Daniel) - Human Rogue
Val Ravensword (Matt) - Half-Orc Paladin
Xevrick (Graham) - Elf Mystic

The Session:
Today we left town using a Passwall spell, and proceeded to follow the path of the slave traders.  We rested during the day and traveled mostly by night.  Late on the second day we discovered we were being tracked by several ogres.  Xevrick tried talking to them, but we ended up in combat.

The first round they threw javelins at us while they drew closer.  Six of them stood in a nice row, allowing Byzun to throw a lightning bolt.  They didn't have very high AC, so it wasn't a particularly long fight.  Once they were all defeated, we found their lair and spent the night.  During one watch we saw a kobold in the back of the tunnels, but we let it be.

We kept traveling.  The next night we had some very bad weather, but we made it through.  The next morning we saw some stones in the shape of an arrow.  We followed the arrow and soon found another one.  The arrows eventually led us to some cracks in the base of a mountain, big enough to enter.

Xevrick turned into a bat and explored some of the passages, while we entered another crack.  Eventually we ran back into each other, and Xevrick showed us a large room he'd found.  We saw some big strips of meat, being prepared like jerky.  We were walking down one hallway when we set off a pit trap.  Byzun and Xevrick failed their saves and slid down an 80 foot tunnel, landing in a large mound of salt.

They were backed against the wall, surrounded by ten gnolls.  The rest of the party gradually joined them, and the fight was on.  Halfbeard flew into the room on his broom, divebombing a gnoll on his way in.  Most of the party spent the fight slowed, but we still prevailed.  The gnolls were no match for us.  After the fight, we explored several tunnels down there, but most of them led to dead ends.

The final tunnel led to a large cavern.  We saw a door on the opposite end, and we sent Robb in to investigate.  As he sneaked through the room, a couple of "piercers" (living stalactites) dropped from the ceiling and attacked.  We looked at the ceiling and saw hundreds of them writhing up there.  They were more annoying than dangerous, but we still didn't want to fight our way through that many.

Byzun threw a fireball at the ceiling, dropping a bunch of them.  We made our way to the door, only to find the door was fake.  But from that angle we did see another tunnel we hadn't seen before.  We ran for that tunnel, taking a few more hits from the piercers, and took a short rest once we were safe.  We ended the session there.