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PREVIOUSLY - CAMPAIGN DIARIES 49 - SECOND INVASION
The Owlbear League has been battling the duergar invaders in the depths of Firehammer Hold but has not found their quarry Jekk. Atlas is trapped in between two sets of iron bars that are latched in the floor and have resisted bending and lifting while duergar shoot arrows at her and her companions. K'ronk conjured a wall of ice in the hallway to the south, freezing some duergar solid, but blocking the rear. Seraphina cast blink to wink in and out of the material plane get through the walls and fight the invaders, and destroyed some with burning hands.
More arrows fly from the eastern arrow slits, missing Orryn twice as he tries to pick the mechanism in the floor. Suddenly violet magic missiles fly from the arrow slots and rip into Orryn, wounding him and knocking him to the side, hurting him severely.
K'ronk hears pounding from the block of ice from the southern corridor, yelling out "guys, we're gonna have company pretty soon."
Next to him, Immeral casts mage armor on K'ronk just to harden them for the impending fight.
CAPTURE CECIL at 12:00 "Why are you eating muffin shells"
Immeral runs down the stairs and casts misty step to teleport to the eastern side of the bars, tucked into the northern stairs to be out of sight of the arrow slits.
K'ronk follows Immeral down the stairs, knowing they have to get by the bars preventing him and Lady D and Orryn and Atlas from escaping their pursuers, but having no space to help with the bars.
Orryn asks Lady D. to try to lift the bars again with Atlas helping, and they struggle and grunt, and a grinding sound happens, but nothing happens, they are still trapped.
Dain rushes to the stairs, but sees a roadblock. He notices a door to the west, runs over to it and opens it, finding a ransacked storeroom. Dain screams in frustration.
Orryn squeezes by Lady D and out of range of whatever spellcaster had hurt him.
Nowhere comes up the stairs to see what Dain is yelling about and sees the opened storage room door, which she dashes into.
Seraphina blinks back to the ethereal plane and steps through the wall where her enemies are launching arrows from.
Viewing the black and white mirror-universe version of reality, Seraphina sees this octagonal barracks contains a fireplace, a round table with stools, and six bunk beds. Three narrow windows pierce the western wall. There are six duergar in the room, three looking out the arrow slits to the west and preparing to shoot another volley of arrows. She sees a pair of levers winches on the southern wall.
Seraphina gets into position and materializes in the room, where she is seen and the duergar shout an alarm.
She casts Spirit Shroud and calls forth spirts of the dead to give additional damage to her attack.
A half-dozen dead spirits appear in the air, flying about and clawing at the duergar with radiant damage.
Seraphina yells "winch controls are in here," then casts Thunderwave. A wave of thunderous force sweeps out from her pounding the duergar and knocking some of them over. Two of the duergar keel over dead. One teeters and one of the dead spirits claws into them and kills them too. The remaining three regain their footing, blood dripping from ears and noses, and as the spirits disappear so does Seraphina, blinking out of the room again.
The duergar shake off the attack and the first two turn invisible. The third starts running from the room yelling "Nalifern!", running up the stairs.
Immeral Misty Steps into the room, rushes over to the winch and controls and looks at the writing on the signage above, but it is in dwarven. Stumped, and not wanted to be attacked, the wizard flips up his cloak of stars and transports into the ethereal plane, appearing in front of Seraphina and waving over to her for a moment.
Dain kicks around some of the empty sacks and such in the store room, looking for anything interesting. Nowhere starts looking for secret passages. Orryn stays hidden on the stairs, hoping Lady D and Atlas can break the bars.
Atlas says a quick prayer to Mizar her deity, then digging in and nodding at Lady D, gives a final herculean effort to pull the bars up, and suddenly from below the floor there is a snapping sound and the gate rises!
Inside the room, from the ethereal plane, Immeral witnesses the chain on the one winch go slack.
Orryn starts squeezing by and hesitates, saying "what are we doing about the 2nd gate?" he looks back and sees Nowhere and Dain are gone, so he races to the top of the stairs and shouts to them "we have the gate up!"
Dain and Nowhere turn and dash over to Orryn and they race down the stairs into the cage, Lady D holding up the gate.
Seraphina returns to the room from the border ethereal and seeing the chain on the left is slack, pulls the lever to the right.
Record Dain - 50:00
Seraphina races back to the arrow slits and once again blinks out of existence.
As the Immeral watches from the ethereal plane, the two duergar become visible again and flip the switch back on the right lever, presumably locking the gate again.
Record Growling - 53:00
A vicious looking duergar cleric races into the room and casts a spell. Four beams of fire shoot out from the arrow slits, two at Orryn and two at Nowhere as the heroes reach the second gate. One of the scorching rays hit Nowhere, but luckily her fire resistance minimizes the damage. Orryn pulls back from the burning beam, taking only a minor singeing.
Immeral takes a deep breath, removes his hood and returns to the prime material plane, appearing right next to the duergar. He yells "bye!" startling them, and just as they go to grab him, casts misty step and teleports back out to the stairway, leaving a silvery mist to dissipate behind.
K'ronk pulls up on the eastern gate, and it does not move in the least, the mechanism locked down again by the duergar. Atlas does an acrobatic flip over to the gate to help K'ronk and seeing the bars will not rise, does another flip in front of her companions just to remain limber. The rest of the party looks at her oddly.
Orryn and Nowhere runs past Lady D. over to the eastern bars when Immeral yells out "they locked the bars again! It's the left lever."
Seraphina blinks back into their reality and yells to Dain, "Dain, call to them in dwarvish!"
Capture Dain 1:03:20
Dain yells out "show your faces you beardless bastards!"
Seraphina disappears again.
The duergar launch a salvo at arrows, the first at Immeral at the corner of the stairs, and misses.
The second shoots at Lady D, but merely strike a glancing blow.
From the ethereal plane Seraphina sees the bald spellcaster talking to the bowmen, they turn and speak back to him, pointing to the arrow slots, but she cannot understand the dwarven tongue.
Immeral takes a star from his robe of stars and launches magic missiles at the duergar in the arrow slits. The attack knocks both of the duergar unconscious and the spellcasting bald man.
K'ronk asks Immeral "what's the situation?" from behind the other side of the bars. He considers eldrich blast, but he can no longer see the duergar. He turns to Atlas and offers help to lift the bars. They pull with all their might and this mechanism breaks a bit more easily than the last and the bars release and fly upward with a snap. Atlas raises them over her head crying "Yeah!" enhanced with the strength of the gauntlets of ogre power.
Dain takes advantage of the opening and runs down their only exit, the stairs down. He's followed by Orryn who calls for Lady D. to drop the western gate. She follows, with Nowhere bringing up the rear.
Seraphina blinks back to the duergar side of the wall, facing off against the man she assumes is called Nalifern, and the spirits from spirit shroud reform around her. She casts sacred flame at him and startled, he takes the blast of radiant light and howls as skin curls from his face. He yells something loudly in dwarvish, likely "Reinforcements!"
Seraphina waits a moment for the blink to happen and for a moment her heart stops as the inconsistent spell doesn't happen. From the ethereal plane she sees him backpedal to the hallway waiting for others to arrive.
Peeking in the arrow slots, Immeral throws another star from cloak of stars and it forms several magic missiles which fly through the narrow opening and strike Nalifern unerringly and he stumbles and yells, but staggers around a corner.
Immeral and Seraphina follow the rest of The League down the stairs.
The northern half of this 30-foot-high cave is roughly hewn rock with a flattened floor. The southern half has been smoothed and the walls lined with stone blocks. The north part of the cave has a natural pool of rippling water. To the west is a descending staircase.
A large niche in the northeast wall contains the statue of a female dwarf in scale armor leaning on a battleaxe. An iron helmet shaped like a strange skull has been placed over her head. The base of the statue has recently been chipped away and carved with a new inscription.
Dain recognizes the statue was originally the same as the room above. Haela Brightaxe, a legendary dwarven warrior that must have belonged to the Firehammer tribes.
Dain looks at the inscription which now reads "Queen of the invisible heart." and his blood boils. "No! Who would do this to you."
Nowhere looks at the helmet over the warrior's head, and says "that is the skull of a mind flayer". The others look on in revulsion. Nowhere grabs the skull and puts it in her the bag of holding K'ronk is already holding open for her, knowing Nowhere has a thing for skulls.
The League decides to move up the rough passage to the northwest, although it is a tight fit for Lady D.
The floor of this 30-foot-high cave has been flattened, but the walls and ceiling are natural. A few natural columns are also here, and a rippling pool covers the southern part of the chamber. Damp sawdust, marked with the footprints of many booted feet, covers much of the floor. Scattered here and there are sawhorses, a stump, and tools such as wood axes, hammers, saws, and rasps. Two 50-foot-long collapsible ladders made of wood and steel, fitted with steel prongs at their ends, lie on the floor near the north wall.
The sounds of movement and clanging come from the northwest.
"We really need to get some sleep." Immeral says.
Orryn, also tired says "I can't see anywhere here being safe."
They head over to the door to east and Atlas and Nowhere open the door. It looks to be a utility room.
This room has two fireplaces in opposite corners, a well surrounded by a low wall in the middle, a large barrel for water in the northwest corner, a work table, and sets of wooden shelves, one on the north wall and one on the east, just south of a door. Another door is in the western wall. The shelves and table are laden with preserved meat, roots, tubers, and mushrooms, as well as casks.
The others pile in, Lady D. barely fitting through the door. She sniffs at some hanging meat and eats an entire ham in one bite.
The League takes several minutes searching for secret passages, and finding none, is a bit startled when the door to the west opens, and two duergar are standing there, carrying buckets and ladles, seemingly coming for water. The front one yells out in dwarvish "Intruders!" and slams the door closed.
Seraphina says "Let's use my rod of security. We can travel to a safe realm, a paradise of my imagining, recover and disappear from here. Although I cannot use it again for 10 days."
"Where did you get that?" Dain asks.
"In the roof of Trollskull, when we were fighting the hag. There was a raven in the nest and this item. It is certainly a blessing from the Raven Queen." She kisses her holy symbol and whispers a quick prayer.
Atlas asks "Can Lady D join us?", and Seraphina replies "Yes, if willing."
Orryn turns to Lady D. and communicates with the Owlbear, and tells them that "Lady D. is willing."
Seraphina raises the rod and activates it, a glow of warm light temporarily blinds the party, and when their vision recovers, they are in a murky, mucky, swampy, gloomy forest with some tents in a nearby glade and a table full of food and drink besides the camp."
Orryn says "Are you serious, you couldn't have imagined that nice hotel back in Triboar?"
Ravens caw from the trees, and a temple to the Raven Queen stands tucked into the swamp.
Lady D is looking around interestingly and she starts lumbering over to the food table.
Immeral asks if there are any books in the temple.
Seraphina tells him, a few, but only filled with my knowledge of the Raven Queen.
Dain yells "Why didn't you pick a tavern!" He yells at a raven, "Get away from that pitcher!"
He goes over, and finding it to be mead, drinks right from the container. It does not seem to empty at all, so he wraps it in his arms and says "Mine!" and goes and rests against a tree.
After a bit of food and drink, the Owlbear League retires for the night.
When they wake, the table of food is refilled, and some wander over and have a bit more to eat. The mages have studied their spells, the magic of the swamp has healed the party, and most of their magic items are fully charged. They are again ready for battle.
Immeral says "we could just stay here for another day for things to calm down."
Nowhere says "what about Jekk?"
Orryn grimaces at the thought.
Immeral casts mage armor on himself.
They gather the others and ask Seraphina to bring them back. Once again, the transition occurs in a flash of light, and The League and Lady D are back in utility room of Firehammer Hold.
Nowhere looks down the well. "We could poison the water. Do we have any poison?"
Atlas says "No poison. Let's peek." Atlas peeks out the eastern door and sees a long hallway. They start down it, seeing offset doors, and at the end a set of tracks running north to south.
"We've gone too deep" whispers K'ronk. The Owlbear League starts down the hall, listening at the first door, but hearing nothing they enter.
This room contains a large anvil, two stone ore containers, and a set of stone shelves. At the bottom of the shelves are three smaller anvils and two large stone mortars with pestles. A half-dozen hammers and as many elongated steel tongs are stored on the higher shelves. A thick layer of dust and slag covers the floor.
They check for secret passages, but finding nothing and hearing nothing, decide to open the southern door.
To the west, this 30-foot-high room has a huge furnace equipped with a chain-and-pulley system to harness and lift two crucibles and move them around the room. The room is still warm. Also in the chamber are two anvils, a large stone basin for water, and a variety of smithing tools and implements. Shelves to the south contain several long bars of iron. There is another door heading south.
Orryn takes one of the 5' long bars.
Atlas starts looking for any secret passages, and the others join her, but find nothing.
This room has a fireplace, a small table with chairs, and on the east wall, a set of stone shelves. The shelves are packed with stone molds of various sizes and shapes for different weapons - axe heads, swords, daggers, spears, etc. Along the south wall is a stairway leading up.
The team spends a few more minutes to search the room, although it is cramped with Lady D. Finding nothing, they head up the stairs.
They creep up the stairs and it enters a hallway that splits to the east and west. Although they can see a stairway upwards to the east, they head to the west, and they start to hear voices. There are fresh duergar to the west, so they back away, and head towards the eastern stairs.
At the top of the stairs there is another guardroom with duergar. They are complaining about how long the shifts are since the assault, and another agrees "since the intruders were clearly scared away."
Knowing they are trapped between guardrooms, they decide to fight, but Atlas worries "they can easily call for reinforcements."
Seraphina whispers "not if I cast silence." and the others nod.
Immeral adds that "the northwestern room could easily be cut off if we can silence them."
Dain adds "I like the silence plan."
Orryn asks Lady D. to guard the stairs and hears the guards talking some more. "I'm getting hungry, when is lunch?" Another replies "they will bring lunch to us, Borregon want everyone at stations." There is more complaining, but nothing of further interest.
While preparing for the assault, Seraphina spies a large duergar leaving from the southwestern guard post, walking straight east. She tells her companions that from the looks of him, there is a commander heading that way.
CAPTURE 46:20 - Spicybrain wants what spicybrain wants.
Seraphina steps up and casts silence on the northwest guardpost, and the duergar start looking around as The Owlbear League runs in.
As they race to attack the confused gray dwarves, Immeral casts chill touch at one on the bed, but misses his target.
K'ronk casts eldrich blast at another enemy and a two beams of crackling energy lances out into a pair of duergar and batters them in the back. They writhe silently in pain and they rise to the fight.
Dain runs into the area of silence, swinging his shield, slamming into one of the duergar, nearly breaking his spine, but he is still conscious.
Atlas races at the enemy rising from his bed, launching a flurry of blows, battering him back, and then unleashing another beating bloodying him badly, and he falls back but rolls off the bed and lands on his feet.
Orryn lets an arrow fly from his short bow at a duergar who has some burned hair, perhaps from yesterday. The duergar screams silently and falls to the floor, unconscious.
Nowhere runs in, but having been in the back of the pack, she is too far to engage with her sword, so she pulls out her sling and unleashes a bullet at one of the duergar and strikes one of the standing duergar bloodying his face. She lets a second bullet fly and it strikes him in the head and knocks him out.
Seraphina follows behind to close off any retreat by the duergar. Orryn motions for Lady D to block the doorway, but Immeral and K'ronk are in the way.
One of the duergar turns invisible, while the second conscious one swings at Atlas, but stumbles over the bed, hitting his head.
The Owlbear League closes ranks, searching for the invisible one.
Immeral casts chill touch and a skeletal hand of necromatic energy descends on the fallen duergar, knocking them unconscious.
K'ronk spreads his arms trying to find the duergar.
Dain spies a barrel of javelins and greedily steps over to refill his javelin quiver, ignoring his invisible enemy. He takes four javelins.
Atlas runs around wildly and swings and connects against the invisible creature, and uses the connection to land several more punches. She hears the duergar hit the ground, and it becomes visible.
The League quickly kills the unconscious duergar and Seraphina drops the silence spell.
When the silence drops, they hear some banging from the hallway that the duergar were guarding, and Atlas dons her cloak of elvenkind and peeks to see two more duergar which have pried up flooring stones to repair the gate trap. Atlas says, "We can shoot two repair guys."
Nowhere says "we are trying to be stealthy."
Atlas nods and says "Let's go!" marching south past her companions and stealthily up the stairs to lead the next phase of the attack.
Atlas sees there are four duergar to the west, and six duergar to the east. One is the leader, berating another duergar how to properly stoke a fire as they are refilling the fireplace.
They decide to split their attention in both directions, using their powerful mages to land heavy surprise damage.
Orryn goes north with Lady D. to defend the rear and circle around to the east with Seraphina.
Immeral peeks out into the hallway and unleashes a lightning bolt to the west. Two manage to lessen the damage by diving out of the way, but the blast knocks two unconscious, and kills one outright.
K'ronk points his staff of frost to the east and unleashes a cone of cold down the hallway. The heat-stealing magic hits five of the six duergar, although the large one moves at the last second to only take partial damage.
The first duergar is half-frozen, but looks enraged.
The second and third are knocked out from the blast of cold.
A fourth just misses getting hit by the beam.
The large duergar, the one who seems to be a leader shakes off the cold and commands his duergar to "Attack!"
Dain rushes up the last few stairs and charges to the west, dives across a table with great axe in hand, splitting his skull open and killing him.
Atlas rushes out and charges east, running into the duergar leader who dodges a flurry of blows, but backed against a wall takes some punches from her second attack. The bulky duergar laughs off the damage, but enraged, Atlas digs into her Ki and unleashes a blinding series of slaps which send him reeling.
Orryn comes up the stairs to the east coming up behind the duergar leader Borregon with Lady D right behind. He shoots an arrow at the leader, but the arrow deflects off its armor.
Seraphina ducks out of the way to let Lady D rush in, and she comes up behind one of their enemies, slashing across his back, nearly collapsing him and drawing gouts of blood. She then takes the screaming duergar into her mouth and bites them in half, a bit of spine sticking out of her beak.
Nowhere runs into the room, rushing in with the speed of a dread ambusher and faces off against the one remaining untouched. The tiefling ranger slashes across the chest of the duergar with icerazor in a vicious attack that cuts down to the bone and releases ice spiders from her weapon. He totters, but remains standing, so strikes back with the pommel, striking the duergar in the face and knocking him out.
The Owlbear League turns and focuses on Borregon, but he turns invisible and the table rattled and the chair moved.
Immeral is walking up the western hallway to close the distance and casts ray of frost blindly up the hallway at their invisible foe, but the beam strikes nothing.
K'ronk stands next to him and considers the staff of frost, but it is depleted. He casts eldrich blast in the general direction of the invisible creature, but the beams go without striking their enemy.
Dain runs from the western guardpost to the east, but is too far to strike anything.
Atlas runs south swinging wildly and seeing there is another duergar guard outpost she is rushing towards. They look at her and start raising weapons. She hits her invisible opponent with a flurry of blows, and using some of her ki she unleashes two more unarmed strikes, hitting him solidly on the first. Then on the second, having placed her invisible opponent and seeing blood on her hands she batters him again with lightning-fast punches empowered by gauntlets of ogre power.
Orryn runs down the hallway to catch up Atlas, who is battering the air in front of a narrow side-passage. Orryn stabs out with his rapier, and connects with the invisible duergar, blood appearing on his dagger.
Nowhere storms up and swings icerazor and skewers his opponent, his weight pulling down on her sword and becoming visible and dropping dead.
Seraphina follows and casts scorching ray which throws three beams of fire that pass her friends and lance out at the remaining four duergar.
The first hits, blasting a duergar with flame. The second hits, setting another's clothes smoldering, and the third scorches the third enemy.
Orryn calls for Lady D and the owlbear drops the skull she was gnawing on and gallops down the hallway, crashing through Nowhere, Atlas and Seraphina who are all battered and tossed akimbo as Orryn ducks into the side passage.
Dain, Immeral and K'ronk race to follow, but are a bit behind.
The first duergar looks in terror at the oncoming owlbear and turns invisible.
The second yells and starts magically growing, their armor and weapons growing proportionately.
The third grabs a javelin and throws it at Lady D, striking the owlbear and she completely ignores the javelin sticking into her chest.
The last duergar charges screaming with a war pick and swings at Orryn, but misses.
Immeral gets as close as he can, but Lady D is blocking most of the passage without hitting her.
K'ronk follows, but also cannot attack.
Atlas is intrigued by the little hallway, she quickly inspects it, and realizes it is the back of a secret passage.
Orryn activates his dagger of venom, black poison emerging from the magical blade, and stabs into the duergar who attacked him. The wound is small, but the duergar's eyes turn black within seconds, black blood tearing at the corners and he screams, but still stands.
Lady D. pushes into the room, crashing into the table and attacking the enlarged duergar. She hits with a vicious slash and beak attack, which spills his guts across the floor and then tears the face of the duergar with her beak. Only eyeballs and skulls are left, and he collapses.
Nowhere rushes at another with Icerazor, connecting and stabbing and slashing, knocking the duergar back and ultimately he falls unconscious.
Seraphina casts faerie fire on the room, lighting the edges of all living things in a 20' cube. The fighting members of the Owlbear League are surrounded in a violet glow. Dain, Lady D, Nowhere, and the remaining duergar are aglow, and Seraphina notices an extra glow underneath the bed, crawling - no longer in secret - towards the exit.
Orryn sees him and swings his rapier, and stabs the crawling, invisible, glowing duergar, but he misses.
The one remaining standing duergar smashes Nowhere with his warpick, drawing blood from the face of the blue-tinged tiefling.
Immeral casts shocking grasp but misses, rolling out of the way.
K'ronk unleashes a fire bolt and surprisingly hits the invisible duergar, who is knocked out and turns visible.
Dain faces off the final duergar, swinging his great axe and nearly eviscerating the grey dwarf, who falls dead to the ground. Dain takes blood from the fallen enemy and wipes it on his face, laying a fifth layer to his blood-encrusted battle mask.
They dispatch all the duergar and spend the time to loot them all for quite a pile of gold and silver, about 20 gp each.
The Owlbear League has decimated the forces of the duergar invaders, but they still have not found Jekk, and are not sure where Nalifern the spellcaster has gotten to. What other secrets lay deep within Firehammer Hold?
NEXT - CAMPAIGN DIARY 51 - Decimation of the Invaders
This adventure used material from the D&D Module "Scourge of the Sword Coast".
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