Dig, dig, dig!

Tragedy seems thick on the ground these days: but you can help here!

Also, we're no longer AL. We moved to la Casa de Yaeger, and it was pretty nice. Quiet dinner table and not having to shout over a crowd of people. Of course, Calvin no longer felt he could make it. So we were down Bruenor.

So, as I predicted: Herman died again as he unlived: being a meat shield. He opened the door and got sprayed with all the alchemist fire. Enough it overwhelmed his Undead Resilience. We didn't have time to pour one for our deader buddy. The room beyond contained nothing of interest, however: just some reservoirs of alchemist fire and the trap mechanism. The door did start to close, presumably resetting the trap, but Phox wedged it open.

We explored the southernmost door in that same room and ran into an orc shaman and some body guards. Once again, Vrinn got to open up, but I scored a critical hit on the follow-up.  Hiro got to use another spell out of Elemental Evil: Snilloc's snowball swarm. It hits an area with snowballs. Phox but the finishing hit on the shaman, Shannon tried a new, and effective tactic, in this battle. Hoggle opened with bane and supplemented it with Cutting Words. The notion being that a bard's de-buffs are more effective than their healing. In this case it did prevent Squiz from having a new axe-hole being torn in him. Once again, Jeff decided to hit the RNG button for a wild surge. Summoning some flumphs, which scared poor Phox.

We did find some alchemists' tools in the shaman's lair. Which would have been nice for harvesting that alchemist fire. If anyone had the proficiency. Instead we climbed down.

The stairs were cut into the stone and lead to some natural and excavated caves. At one point, a stream crossed them: a rill! D&D is good for your vocabulary, kids! Because we all want that 100% Map Completion Trophy, we followed the stream.

It led to a little side cave that served as a lair for more stirges. They had managed to exsanguinate another adventurer, and we looted the corpse. We continued down the stream, and Lydia fell heels over ass down into a larger cavern, where the stairs would have eventually led us. Now, with several passages to traverse, we went for left-hand most one first, coming upon a group of troglodytes, stinky subterranean lizard people in D&D monster terms. The real fun was a locked gate in their lair.

Phox loudly proclaimed, "There's no bears in caves" before we opened it. Of course there was a bear. This, apparently, made out barbarian angry. So she raged and grappled it. In effort to help her pet human, Lydia used hex on the bear's Strength, to give it disadvantage on the checks needed to escape a grapple. This gave Vrinn the opportunity to sneak attack it in the hit points, dropping it.

We continued on, finding ourselves in a forest of fungi. Some of it glowed, of course. We came to a side ledge, an iron gate, and a grand stair case. Since we just had to have that 100% map, and Hoggle volunteered to go first, Phox hoisted him up onto that latch. Only for a couple of gricks to attack. These ugly things are resistant to non-magical attacks. So, pretty tough on their own. But then a giant subterranean lizard attacked us, too. It put the bite on Phox, holding her in it's jaws. Once again, Lydia used hex, not wanting the funny human to die. Jeff mashed the RNG button again with Hiro using a wild surge, turning everything and everyone in the fight invisible. This did allow Vrinn to end the fight with a sneak attack on the last remaining grick after everything else was dropped. Unfortunately, Phox and Hoggle both got dropped. With the healer down, we had to use a potion of healing.

We found some dead adventurers in a back cave past the ledge. We looted the corpses, then barricaded ourselves in for a nice long rest.

Then we climbed up that long flight of stairs, coming to an unlocked iron door. We heard the sound of hammers on anvils beyond. Seems someone or something was still making those weapons! It lead into an octagonal room lined with doors and more statues or armed dwarves. Hiro went up to a door and a statue attacked him. To add insult to injury, the door was false. Hoggle searched around for more traps, but some poor rolling led to the conclusion that nope, there were no more traps! Then Squiz tried to open another door and also got hit by a statue. Again, the door was false and trixie. Why did we send the arcane casters, the squishiest party members, to check for traps? Reasons.

So, Lydia, another arcane caster, but slightly less squishy, looked around and found a secret door with her drow eyes. She, however, exercised a little prudence and opened it with mage hand. It led to a pillared throne room. As we arrived, we heard a voice, possibly an alarm, shout something in dwarvish about intruders. We moved in cautiously and were confronted by duergar. These subterranean dwarves aren't generally regarded as altruistic, but are willing to treat with other races from time to time. So we opened with parley.

The dwarves told us they were reactivating the forge for their own business, which was none of ours, thank you. They told us there were undead roaming some rooms to the north that needed clearing, and also let us know that a dragon lived in the lower levels of the complex on top of a treasure hoard. They offered to take us to the dragon for 200gp. Hoggle tried to barter with a potion, that was in fact poison, but failed. Then Lydia offered to clear the undead for them for half that fee, and they agreed.

Alec really wanted us to just go to the dragon. He wants to take a break from running, even though he's pretty darn good. He wants to go to Chult and fight Acererak.

But, we took the undead option. In return for the promise that we could keep any treasure we found. Looks like he'll have to run another week or two. I'll be good to go.