Enola Yarn – blogpost 36

After the fight, we all walk up to the dead Vrock that ate Zeph. I am shaking uncontrollably and crying my eyes out. When we open up the Vrock, we see a tiny body completely covered in slime, mucus, and blood. Zephs’ arms are torn off, and I cannot spot them – and I don’t want to. I walk away and sit on the ground. I see Valentine looking distraught at the Vrock. In the background I hear Farryn say: “Hey Valentine, do you want a bag of holding?” 

It takes a minute, but then I register what he’d just say. How dare he, immediately take loot when a valued party member has just DIED. The nerve. I wipe the tears from my cheek and stand up in anger. I grab my staff of birdcall and when I hit Farryn on his head multiple times, a chicken clucks every time the staff hits his head. “YOU. HAVE. NO. RESPECT!!” I shout between hits.

Suddenly, I see the Vrock light up neon green and stop hitting and yelling. We all approach the Vrock and see Zephs’ remains light up and slowly evaporate – it is like little neon green fireflies fly up towards the sky. The new gnome introduces himself timidly as Calyx Wagglepatch and asks if we would like him to perform a small service in honor of Zeph. I would really like that, but we first need to find shelter.

Along the way, Calyx puts some powder of vitality on our wounds: he calls it Fungi Heliantes. “Calyx, are you traveling with us?” asks Farryn.

“Well, I was just trying to get here to get you, actually.” 

Farryn explains why we’re here in the dungeon, and what he is searching for: to improve Grond. All knowledge will be shared with the guild and the treasure.

Calyx found us by asking for us in Waterdeep. He heard of a gnome that lived in Trollskull manor and talked to the bartender there. As it turned out, the gnome really was Farryn, so Calyx traveled back to us, accompanied by Smoke on the Water. He then found us in a battle and decided to help us. “It is very unfortunate and sad you’ve lost a party member.”

When we’ve found shelter, Calyx rolls a seed in his hands: a plant with flower sprouts instantly. The flower is purple, blue, and turquoise. “Let’s remember… um…” Calyx starts. “Zeph Glitterflitter,” I say softly. “Let’s remember Zeph Glitterflitter.” When Calyx ends his sentence, the base of the flower lights up in flames. The flames rise up to the petals, and when it starts burning there, the fire turns blue and purple with lots of glitters. It is beautiful.

After the service, we talk about what to do next. We decide to try and infiltrate House Freth: we alter our appearances. Valentine takes the form of Rilna – Drivvins sister, and I transform into a normal Drow. Farryn will pretend to be a prisoner, transported by Grond, and Calyx will be a spider, that pretend-Rilna will ride. Valentine asks for some information about the area to a Drow that is in control of my rod of rulership.

We enter a door to Rilnas’ quarters. The room is small and luxurious, with a small chest in the back. We try to open the chest, and in the end, we succeed. However, Farryn and Valentine need to break it to open it. We find 800 gold pieces, 6 zircons, 4 garnets, a topaz, and two potions of healing. There is also a glass cabinet, and Farryn finds about 20 vials of drow poison in there. He is super excited because you can put that on weapons and inflict more damage. He also mends the chest, so no one gets suspicious. We ask Calyx to watch the door, and tell him to tick _ . . _ when something is up.

We move to the next building and find an ornate door and step through. Immediately, I get the creeps: the walls seem to move. When I look closer, I see a hundred, no thousands of small spiders crawling and covering the walls. We walk quickly further to the hall. Then, a door opens, and a mage looks into the hallway and sees us. “Hi. Greetings,” she says. 

“Hi. Why didn’t you help us just now during the battle, outside?” asks Valentine, still Rilna. 

“Those things are your business, not ours.”

“Yeah, you’re right…” says Valentine. I can see there are two women, both human. The first one is a mage, and the next one wears daggers around her waist. 

“Can we help you?”

“I don’t know.” 

“Okay, well, I think eyes can be deceiving. I know you’re Tieflings.” the woman looks us both in the eye. 

“Hi. I’m Valentine.”

“I’m Enola.”

Apparently, these women are the family of Skrianna: they’re called Maleen Shadowdusk and Tendra Nightblade. They needed to build an alliance with House Freth in the assignment of Hallaster. Their castle is near Halasters, at the bottom of the dungeon: Shadowdusk Keep. They’re not that happy with the assignment, I can tell. They also tell us that Drivvin is Hallasters’ pupil. But now he ran off from the battle, so he might not be that good of a pick. Hallaster will be looking for a new pupil possibly, they say. I am immediately interested and more invested in the conversation. Without thinking, I just exclaim: “Oh, pick me. Pick me!” Valentine recommends me to the two women, but they don’t think I’m suited for the job, but might be better than Drivvin. We say farewell, and they walk off.

We go ahead and investigate another room. I knock on the door, and a rune activates. Shit. Fire shoots from the door and almost burns us alive. Luckily, we’re all still alive and walk into the room. In the middle, we see a chest. Farryn opens it but gets electrocuted, so we open it with a mage hand. We find some treasure: 175 platinum pieces, and some books. We check them, and one book is purple, with silver embellishments. Could this be… the thing that Farryn is looking for? The other books are spellbooks, that I can have. Farryn investigates the book with my help, and we conclude it is a Tome of Clear Thoughts: indeed the book he was looking for for a long time. Farryn is ecstatic!

In the next room, we find the prison. There are two Drow chained to the wall. One of them is of House Freth, and the other one is a spy for House Auvryndarr. The one of House Freth tells us he has been set up for poisoning the niece of Rilna. We try to interrogate him, but he finds out that we’re not from House Freth. To shut him up, Valentine suggests that he keeps his mouth shut. We take the spy with us and try to convince him we’re on his side. In the hallway, we show us our Auvryndarr pins and say: “Praise to the Spider Queen and hail house Auvryndarr.” The spy says he didn’t tell House Freth anything. He warns us of Drivvin and Erelal, but we stop him and say we already chased them away. We set the spy free and ask him to spread the word to House Auvryndarr and Vlonwelv. “Yes, of course, I’ll tell Vlonwelv about how you saved me and battled House Freth!”

After saying goodbye to the spy, we open up another door. We find two female Drow there, that are waiting for Erelal. Valentine, still Rilna, commands them to wait outside. As the Drow walk out, we walk in. We find ourselves in the headquarters of Erelal. There is a big cabinet with bottles and an altar. Farryn finds an Obsidian Dagger and investigates the altar. It is covered in some kind of slime, and the slime attaches itself to Farryn and Calyx’s spider-leg. Farryn and Calyx start bleeding from the spots the slime got stuck on. They both feel very sick. I check their wounds and conclude it is ‘slimy doom’. This shit takes a week to heal and it causes uncontrollable bleeding. In seven days, it is cured automatically, but it is very uncomfortable to walk around with. I share this information with Calyx and Farryn. Calyx performs lesser restoration on himself and Farryn, and I can see the wounds clear out and slime dripping from their skin to the ground.

We take a couple of minutes to recover from the shock but decide to continue investigating outside. We’ve seen a couple of goblins outside that might be abducted from level two.