Category DND Blog: EFK Saga

After a little bit more dithering, but not too much, the party decides to use a Passwall to bypass the plug and escape the golem factory.
Upon reaching the surface, a slaughtered band of adventurers awaits.
Mules and party have been pummeled to death by very hard blunt instruments. The corpses have been looted and the scene of the slaughter is no more than a few days old. The only clue is a lot of slipper prints that lead away from the scene and out into the badlands.

Naima mentions that the slipper prints bear a distinct similarity to the slippers of the missing ‘rug merchant’ that the group freed in the early hours of the raid...

…and after a while it is decided to adventure onward in the hopes of finding a secret escape hatch of some sort. Room after pentagonal room is entered and explored, and it is decided that the entire complex is some sort of golem manufacturing center – based on the evidence consisting of partially formed golems littering the place. Not all the golems are your standard bipedal monstrosities. A series of angry garden golems is dispatched as are an artificial rat and a wasp and some sort of metal dog. Oh sure, there are encounters with golems of stone and of iron – and terrible damage is taken and inflicted, but in the end all the golems worth dispatching are dispatched, and the plunder worth plundering has been plundered…and the plug is still sealing the hole...

Departing Thudheim, the group decides a new path is in order, in order to dodge the Beholdertoll. Venturing along the shining river, the group meanders northward, skirting the edge of Monkey Mountain and the southernmost tip of Lord Stumpy’s domain. Along the way they spot a group of praries skulkers that skulk away when they see the group. A few days later, the party encounters a posse of disgruntled townsfolk who appear to be tracking the skulkers. Information is shared and the posse proceeds in a southerly direction while the group continues north.

Eventually reaching a river ford, signs of the passage of heavily laden wagons is noted by Naima, the nut-brown native from the distant south. What is not seen by Naima, or anyone else until Barada points
them out, is a set of large footprint...

Venturing deeper into the tomb, the party quickly explores the two obvious avenues available to them and finds little to pique interest save plundered rooms, alarmed corridors and a pair of hungry oozes that want to snack upon Reiza. Oozes vanquished, the party returns to the staircase. Some observant observations from the bard reveals the presence of concealed doors – magical of course – that proceed to stymie the party for the better part of an hour before the Feaster is called into action to provide a little torchfire that will open the doors. The first door so opened is also alarmed, but none of the noise seems to bother the armored figures in a room at the end of a long hallway. Indeed, it is not until the party gets within a few feet of the room opening that either moves...

In the midst of bemoaning the loss of Lord Lubboch and pondering the probability of procuring another Parker, the group is feeling somewhat disheartened. Well, all except for the Feaster, who is feeling like a sprout in the spring.
“‘Oh the cruel nature of fate – Lubboch was wearing a ring of wishes. He could have wished back another character that was made fishy. Oh how cruel…”
“Wait”, says Dalliance…”I have a wish ring too!”
And there was much rejoicing and pondering of proper wording so as to avoid any grudges. In the end, Lubboch was restored to the state in which he was immediate prior to being turned into a trout, but in the same room as Dalliance – as opposed to under the mountain. And so the words were spoken.

And then there was Lubboch...