Last session, the party, consisting of Kyllar, the human wizard, Turnin the human monk, and Nameless, the gnome barbarian befriended the cultists, left, and defeated a group of marauding spiders and spider-wranglers on the road, all while dragging the unconscious halfling rogue Shadowale and drow Ranger Zyn on a magical floating liter. The party stumbled upon a “safe-hovel” used by cultist missionaries as they traveled, and as it began to drizzle, prepare a meal from some of the foodstuffs they found in the hovel…
A small fire crackled beneath the meal-in-progress, and the aromas revived Zyn. Shadowale was still tuckered out from his bout with the Shadow Demon.
As they ate, the party brought Zyn up to speed, and regaled each other with reminders of what great exploits they had accomplished. Some of Shadowale’s secret road beers, kept in his pockets were pilfered by the party, and …images were drawn/traced on his sleeping face. The party wondered aloud why Shadowale wouldn’t wake up, especially since they heard him mumbling several times, when Kyllar meekly added that his magical liter only lasts an hour before it disappears and needs to be conjured again. After traveling for a few days... there may have been a few times where the liter winked out of existence and Shadowale landed on his head. The party couldn’t decide if that could be a contributing factor to unconsciousness or not, given that none of them were healers; had no medical proficiencies; and have historically been pretty terrible at non-lethal force.
Eventually the conversation waned and the party drifted to sleep. In the dead of night, the rain stopped, and was replaced by a slowly building unnatural thunder. Lightning soon began to flash as well. For a while, the party just slept, but without the rain to smooth the sounds out, the percussive rumbles soon began to wake the party. The fire had not quite died out, and they peered out of shoddy earthen “window holes” into the darkness.
They heard the whoops and skitters of their now-familiar spindly foes, and Turnin retreated to the center of the hovel, absent-mindedly massaging his throat, which was still red from yesterday’s webby garrotes. The fire was quickly smothered down to coals to provide some warmth without generating too much light, and magical illusions and then blankets soon covered the hovel’s windows. The party waited out the sounds, and while they were not discovered, they did not sleep soundly.
In the morning, the party tensely rose, tried to rouse Shadowale, failed to do so, snickered at the doodles, and set about their day. Not wanting to drag him around, Kyllar called forth a large gust of wind, and blew it into the Bag of Holding, filling it with breathable air for Shadowale, who was also placed into the bag for safe keeping. A quick meal boosted their spirits, and they surveyed the surrounding area, seeing evidence of clutters of spiders crashing through the area. However, the party was unable to determine either the point of origin nor the intended destination of their spider and spider-wrangling foes. Watching their backs, the party, armed with Brenda’s receipt, marched onward, towards the weapon smith to pick up her order of fancy weapons.
After an hour or two of marching, the party saw a plume of smoke up ahead, and soon found themselves on a meandering path toward it. Declining to scout the area, the party walked right in, rounding the last bend, and into a fight. A dwarf, barricaded behind some wooden furniture shouted a warning of “Oi! Look out!” and gestured wildly with a crude, entirely wooden spear to a mine entrance, from which a large, armored animal was emerging; its shoulder as high as a human is tall. It waived its feathery antennae, and after the briefest of pauses, ignored the dwarf, and hungrily galloped toward the party.
The party was quick to oblige the beast; Turnin bounded forth and landed a few solid blows with his wooden staff and fists; Kyllar make a crack about the weapon smith not being that good, if all she had was a wooden spear, shot a firebolt, but missed. Zyn fired his hand crossbows, both striking the beast, but both tips sizzled, and failed to penetrate the beasts hide like they normally would. The beast plowed on, and Nameless the gnome stepped forth, his axe finding a weak spot in the carapace, and cracking the beast wide open. However, as soon as the edge found purchase, it began to corrode. As the beast expired, Nameless regarded his instrument of battle, recoiled in fear, and tried to stab it into the ground in a frantic attempt to smother the corrosion and stop it. But as Nameless pushed the weapon into the earth, it only moldered and crumbled, and he was left with only the grip-wraps around the wooden haft, and rusty dust blowing away in the breeze…
As Nameless collapsed to his knees in disbelief, the dwarf finished her warning… telling the party to lookout, “because that’s a rust monster.” What a difference a single round of combat can make.
The dwarf weapon smith commiserates with Nameless’ loss, and introduces herself as Melora Forgestoker, affiliated with House Cannith, as well as her son and apprentice Kendron, who was also hiding behind the barricade. Quickly, the party learns that the rusties had 1) eaten Brenda’s order of fancy weapons, 2) eaten most of the stockpiled metals here 3) were roused by her digging brothers and 4) had been partially contained within the mine by her three brothers collapsing part of it from within. She promises to make them a good, proper weapon, if they can 1) find some metal, 2) eradicate the rust monsters, and (most importantly) 3) rescue her brothers.
After some discussion and logical thinking regarding the nature of rust monsters, the party doffed their armor, laid down their weapons, and left their metal in a pile. Melora and Kendron helped gather the components, while Zyn fashioned some rustic arrows for himself and a large stone-headed club for Nameless. It was a poor substitute for the battle axe, but these weapons, while not as lethal as their metal counterparts, would work (and most importantly, last) against their new subterranean foes.
Melora never ventured underground, and therefore couldn’t provide the party with a map of the mine. Fortunately, Nameless was a skilled barbarian wanderer, and would be able to construct a basic map based on their footsteps. After lighting some torches, the party descended into the mine.
After a few winding dead ends, the party found a few more rusties, greedily gnawing at some exposed ore. The party quickly ended them without too much trouble, and then found a cave in. They listened intently, and heard deep-voiced mumbling on the other side. They cleared enough rubble to communicate, and got a better lay of the land from the trapped dwarves. The dwarves had collapsed the mine a little further on, they thought, trapping most of the rusties. However, the mine unfortunately collapsed in a second area, this area, and trapped them.
With some effort, the party cleared the first obstruction. Only trapped for a few hours, the miner brothers were eager to help clear the way for the adventurers to exact revenge. With the obstruction cleared by hand, the miners retreated to the surface with what they were able to salvage from their haul, and the adventurers pressed on, walking deeper into the mine.
A little further on, the party discovered another rust monster, but this one was done snacking, and went down swinging. After a few more dead ends, the party found a hole in the wall, presumable from where the rust monsters emerged.
As they ate, the party brought Zyn up to speed, and regaled each other with reminders of what great exploits they had accomplished. Some of Shadowale’s secret road beers, kept in his pockets were pilfered by the party, and …images were drawn/traced on his sleeping face. The party wondered aloud why Shadowale wouldn’t wake up, especially since they heard him mumbling several times, when Kyllar meekly added that his magical liter only lasts an hour before it disappears and needs to be conjured again. After traveling for a few days... there may have been a few times where the liter winked out of existence and Shadowale landed on his head. The party couldn’t decide if that could be a contributing factor to unconsciousness or not, given that none of them were healers; had no medical proficiencies; and have historically been pretty terrible at non-lethal force.
Eventually the conversation waned and the party drifted to sleep. In the dead of night, the rain stopped, and was replaced by a slowly building unnatural thunder. Lightning soon began to flash as well. For a while, the party just slept, but without the rain to smooth the sounds out, the percussive rumbles soon began to wake the party. The fire had not quite died out, and they peered out of shoddy earthen “window holes” into the darkness.
They heard the whoops and skitters of their now-familiar spindly foes, and Turnin retreated to the center of the hovel, absent-mindedly massaging his throat, which was still red from yesterday’s webby garrotes. The fire was quickly smothered down to coals to provide some warmth without generating too much light, and magical illusions and then blankets soon covered the hovel’s windows. The party waited out the sounds, and while they were not discovered, they did not sleep soundly.
In the morning, the party tensely rose, tried to rouse Shadowale, failed to do so, snickered at the doodles, and set about their day. Not wanting to drag him around, Kyllar called forth a large gust of wind, and blew it into the Bag of Holding, filling it with breathable air for Shadowale, who was also placed into the bag for safe keeping. A quick meal boosted their spirits, and they surveyed the surrounding area, seeing evidence of clutters of spiders crashing through the area. However, the party was unable to determine either the point of origin nor the intended destination of their spider and spider-wrangling foes. Watching their backs, the party, armed with Brenda’s receipt, marched onward, towards the weapon smith to pick up her order of fancy weapons.
After an hour or two of marching, the party saw a plume of smoke up ahead, and soon found themselves on a meandering path toward it. Declining to scout the area, the party walked right in, rounding the last bend, and into a fight. A dwarf, barricaded behind some wooden furniture shouted a warning of “Oi! Look out!” and gestured wildly with a crude, entirely wooden spear to a mine entrance, from which a large, armored animal was emerging; its shoulder as high as a human is tall. It waived its feathery antennae, and after the briefest of pauses, ignored the dwarf, and hungrily galloped toward the party.
The party was quick to oblige the beast; Turnin bounded forth and landed a few solid blows with his wooden staff and fists; Kyllar make a crack about the weapon smith not being that good, if all she had was a wooden spear, shot a firebolt, but missed. Zyn fired his hand crossbows, both striking the beast, but both tips sizzled, and failed to penetrate the beasts hide like they normally would. The beast plowed on, and Nameless the gnome stepped forth, his axe finding a weak spot in the carapace, and cracking the beast wide open. However, as soon as the edge found purchase, it began to corrode. As the beast expired, Nameless regarded his instrument of battle, recoiled in fear, and tried to stab it into the ground in a frantic attempt to smother the corrosion and stop it. But as Nameless pushed the weapon into the earth, it only moldered and crumbled, and he was left with only the grip-wraps around the wooden haft, and rusty dust blowing away in the breeze…
As Nameless collapsed to his knees in disbelief, the dwarf finished her warning… telling the party to lookout, “because that’s a rust monster.” What a difference a single round of combat can make.
The dwarf weapon smith commiserates with Nameless’ loss, and introduces herself as Melora Forgestoker, affiliated with House Cannith, as well as her son and apprentice Kendron, who was also hiding behind the barricade. Quickly, the party learns that the rusties had 1) eaten Brenda’s order of fancy weapons, 2) eaten most of the stockpiled metals here 3) were roused by her digging brothers and 4) had been partially contained within the mine by her three brothers collapsing part of it from within. She promises to make them a good, proper weapon, if they can 1) find some metal, 2) eradicate the rust monsters, and (most importantly) 3) rescue her brothers.
After some discussion and logical thinking regarding the nature of rust monsters, the party doffed their armor, laid down their weapons, and left their metal in a pile. Melora and Kendron helped gather the components, while Zyn fashioned some rustic arrows for himself and a large stone-headed club for Nameless. It was a poor substitute for the battle axe, but these weapons, while not as lethal as their metal counterparts, would work (and most importantly, last) against their new subterranean foes.
Melora never ventured underground, and therefore couldn’t provide the party with a map of the mine. Fortunately, Nameless was a skilled barbarian wanderer, and would be able to construct a basic map based on their footsteps. After lighting some torches, the party descended into the mine.
After a few winding dead ends, the party found a few more rusties, greedily gnawing at some exposed ore. The party quickly ended them without too much trouble, and then found a cave in. They listened intently, and heard deep-voiced mumbling on the other side. They cleared enough rubble to communicate, and got a better lay of the land from the trapped dwarves. The dwarves had collapsed the mine a little further on, they thought, trapping most of the rusties. However, the mine unfortunately collapsed in a second area, this area, and trapped them.
With some effort, the party cleared the first obstruction. Only trapped for a few hours, the miner brothers were eager to help clear the way for the adventurers to exact revenge. With the obstruction cleared by hand, the miners retreated to the surface with what they were able to salvage from their haul, and the adventurers pressed on, walking deeper into the mine.
A little further on, the party discovered another rust monster, but this one was done snacking, and went down swinging. After a few more dead ends, the party found a hole in the wall, presumable from where the rust monsters emerged.
Nameless was able to determine that a small brood awaited them, and after a brief parley, the party decided to rush in. Inside was a massive, bulging rust monster, far too big to fit into the dwarves’ mining corridor. At the queen’s feet are several (immature) dog-sized rust monsters.
Nameless rushed the queen in a vengeful rage while Turnin, Zyn and Kyllar focused on picking apart the little ones from various ranges. The little ones swarmed Turnin, landing several blows, while the queen traded blows with Nameless.
The little ones were eventually dispatched, but as the party began to focus their efforts on the queen, they found that the more damage they did, the more additional little ones emerged from her breaking carapace. Now, with more small monsters than they started with, Nameless swung his stone-headed club, and connected with a wet squelch. The queen teetered, and while Turnin and Nameless avoided being crushed by her fall, several of the little monsters were not so lucky. The remaining few were dispatched with ease.
The party traveled back to the surface, where they were greeted with cheers from the dwarves. They set about returning the place to normalcy. As compensation for their deeds, Melora forged a battle axe engraved with a regal squirrel, weighted just “so” to let Nameless wield it more easily, and strike with more potency.
Unfortunately, the axe used up all the available metal. As recompense for being unable to fully fulfill the order, she gives the party a locked, ornate metal container, roughly the size of the two fists and adorned with symbols of House Cannith. Inside this container, is a document signed by Melora, pledging that House Cannith will grant one minor favor to the party.
The party rests and recuperates, and decides to begin travel towards Sharn, which they hear is lovely this time of year. In addition to being filled with adventure and such.
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