by: Me!
The party spends a few days in Gnomehome waiting for Carmen to make 3 scrolls of Freedom of Movement and recovering from their various ailments. They browse the wares of the gnomes and pick up a few potions, but hold off on any gear.
The trip south is interrupted late on the first day of travel by a pack of 5 ill-equipped and starving goblins. Jobin takes pity on the wretches and gives them some food after hearing their story of falling into the depths during an earthquake. He gives them some basic directions back to the surface, but Tomoe interrupts, citing his directions are unintentionally incorrect (dat 0 Survival), and sets them off in the right direction. One of the goblins plows into Jobin, seemingly accidentally, on the way out, but is not pursued. Later during the day he finds a lump in his pocket that appears to be a hard chunk of fungus with gnaw marks on it. Brushing off the gunk uncovers an uncut emerald worth 300gp.
Cowl identifies the stench of Quaggoths two intersections away during the middle of the second day of travel (day 72), right where Carmen's map claimed they would be. The party heads in after dousing their torches and taking hits off the darkvision wand, Tomoe scouting ahead stealthily. Fungus, muck and loose stone make this section of cave considerably more difficult to traverse and the party suffers from the poor footing throughout the rest of the session. Cowl (now with draconic claws replacing the cat ones) takes to climbing along the walls rather than messing up his fur. Jobin chooses to fall down, often. Everyone else does mostly okay.
(Rules for the terrain - DC 10 Acrobatics on the light Difficult Terrain, DC 14 on the dark DT, +5 to DC if moving more than 1/2 speed. Failure means end movement and go prone in first square of DT.)
Tomoe easily spots a pack of Quaggoth guards ahead and returns to notify the party. The fight is quick and brutal against the 8 Quags and the party suffers few casualties. They decline another intersection in the cave system and continue to follow Cowl's nose to the stinky beasts.
The next group is spotted butchering a large cave lizard and caught unaware by Cowl using his scroll of Cone of Cold from the ceiling, instantly killing half the pack and wounding many others. Erol's follow-up Stinking Cloud sickens the remainders who still try to put up a fight. They are easily disposed of.
Tomoe sneaks by another pack who also fail to notice her, resulting in the party and pack both being rather surprised. This fight is a bit rougher due to the lack of prep and the party has to expend a few resources to cope. Fortunately, OrTree now has his Boots of Earth/Lifebond combo going which eliminates the need for out of combat healing when time isn't imperative.
Tomoe again spies out the next pack before it detects the party, which, admittedly, is not as hard when she hears a particularly large Quaggoth with a greatsword working a large pack into a frenzy. The party steps in before he finishes his speech. Erol cuts off part of the pack from the big guy with another poot cloud and the party establishes a defensive line that cuts the puking beasts down as they emerge. One of the Jald's slips through and starts tearing into the casters, doing a considerable amount of damage throughout the fight. The rest of the Quags mob an enlarged Jobin and miss 75% of the time, but the sheer volume of attacks starts to overwhelm him with crits.
The party rallies back and finishes off most of the basic Quags as the leader emerges from the cloud only to meet a crit from Jobin, followed by a failed save. He retreats back into the cloud, puking and sad. The rest of the battle goes quickly without the support of the leader and the party is able to mop up quickly.
Tomoe scouts around a bit as the party loots and heals. She declines going into a short northern tunnel leading to clear water and heads a bit to the west. The large cavern she enters shows few signs of travel, but many signs of a significant battle between quaggoths and what she identifies as hook horrors some time ago. She heads back to the party and they locate a large cache of treasure in a chest made of more carapaces.
Depleted, the party decides a long rest is in order and breaks out the insta-cabin with Tomoe on watch. After some "This is what I'd actually be doing" retconning due to being unclear on PC positions in response to an encounter starting it is established that Tomoe is hiding in the shadows near the hut with an everburning torch near the intersection 40 or so ft away.
Suddenly, the torch is ripped off the wall and extinguished. Tomoe retreats back towards the hut as a hook horror crashes down from the ceiling where she had been standing. She ducks around the back of the hut using the narrow alley between the wall to keep the horror at bay as the party awakens and engages.
Jobin squares off against two of the horrors outside the cabin and is cut to shreds by their awesome blows and scissoring beaks, surely dying were it not for the miracle bodyguard defense of Rogtar. Erol attempts to clog up the entry with a euphoric cloud, but 2/3 shrug it off, and the other seemingly breaks the fascination shortly afterward.
Sensing an opening, one of the horrors presses into the cabin, trapping everyone against the back wall with its large bulk. It goes on a rampage until it is brought down by acid arrows, fire arcs, and spear pokes. Jobin hovers at deaths door throughout the fight as OrTree tries in vain to stem the damage, but the party manages to rally and slay the last of the horrors with some good rolls.
Quaggoth Lizard Hunters: (14 Quag, 1 Jald with stone axe) - 833 EXP
Quaggoth Fishers: (12 Quag) - 600 EXP
Quaggoth Home Cave: (12 Quag, 2 Jald, 1 Thonot [chief] with sword) - 1,066 EXP
Hook Horror house warming party (3) - 900 EXP
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