SoloDark: Pelor's Quest ep66

--/-- Welcome to SoloBickering! It's a solo rpg, which means I roll dice generate a story and decide outcomes, and lose arguments with myself as I portray the exploits of my adventurers. 

--/-- Join me on a journey into the game world I play face to face in, and it may sound vaguely familiar to you. Like many another DM I stitch my world together from any bits and pieces I fancy, adding them into a standard setting, Faerun's Sword Coast.  

--/-- AI and NSFW: For this possibly brief adventure the stars are young and moderately hot, and I'll be using CoPilot AI to buff my romance bar, because I'm useless at romance, and for side situations that need social interactions. Some of the situations the young protagonists find themselves in may turn out to be NSFW. I won't be deliberately aiming for that, but oracles are what they are. So if on either account you take an ethical stand against those, skip this episode and listen in to Rollohi, my other SoloBickering output. 

--/-- And having said that, let's get the game started. 

 --/--Music from Pixabay with thanks to: daynightmorning, Good_B-Music, JefWakeUp, LudoSoundX, makesoundmusic, Playsound, teodholina, and White_Records

--/--Selected tracks from "Ancient Realms" by Joel Steudler Music.

--/--The adventure *the Lurker Beneath Red Larch* by MT Black: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/184581/the-lurker-beneath-red-larch-adventure
--/--MT Black's 5e Vol i collection: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/198501/complete-adventures-of-m-t-black-vol-i

https://larrymannplayssolobickering.blogspot.com

Transcript

Speaker 0:00

Two days. Yes. That is reasonable. The bridge will not widen in that time. And now that I have the scroll, I can't really afford to linger here myself. Every hour I delay is an hour the valley loses. But two days? Two days is the time I would have spent traveling with the survivors. I can give you that. If you strike at the threat beneath the red light and return in two days, I'll be ready waiting for you, gladly. But no more than that. After two days, I will ride to Beliard with you or without you.

Speaker 2 0:45

Join me on a journey into the game world I play face-to-face in. And it may sound vaguely familiar to you. Like many another DM, I stitch my world together from any bits and pieces I fancy, adding them into a standard setting, Faerun's Sword Coast. For this venture, the stars are young and moderately hot, and I'll be using Copilot AI here and there to buff my romance bar, because I'm useless at romance, and for side situations that don't really need tools. Some of the situations the young protags find themselves in may turn out to be NSFW. And if you're uncomfortable on either of those two scores, skip this and head over to the world of Rollohi. Otherwise, having said that, let's get on with this show.

Recap

Speaker 2 1:41

Welcome back to The Lurker Beneath Red Larch by MT Black. You'll find where to purchase the module in the show notes. This final section is heavily adapted from the published version. Now let's join our heroes. It's getting near the end of day one, and our four heroes are walking into, though they do not know it, the final leg of the dungeon that is the Lurker beneath Red Larch. They're in the killing zone. All of them have had a sense of unease, and at this point, Saqib begins to ready himself to cast protection from evil. First, he checks who will be carrying the torch or torches. Somewhat to his surprise, both of the women indicate that they would like to keep a burning torch going.

Locinda 2:57

Two's better than one at this stage. As long as Nat's ready for me to drop my torch. And draw me old axe. I don't mind. I'll keep a torch burning. And my dagger in my other hand.

Speaker 2 3:19

Good enough then, Saqib agrees. Given what's attacked us already in this dungeon, I don't think we should assume that danger will just come from our head. We should be aware of what's beneath us as well. Or above.

Speaker 2 3:37

Yes. Or above, Drum says. He actually has a hand spare to carry a torch, but he prefers to two-hand Shatterspike. He studies the ceiling carefully. I roll a fourteen on his wisdom perception. Getting to DC 15. Let's assume we can be attacked from pretty much anywhere. Accordingly, the party pretty much revolve around each other as they probe carefully along the passage formed by the seemingly natural rock tube. Alright, now that we're ready, Nat, I'm going to begin Protection from Evil on You. For this prayer, Saqib has advantage. Thanks to his generous donation to Tymora. He scrapes through with the best roll of nine. Adding his wisdom, that's just enough. An invisible but felt aura surrounds that. She feels reassured. Let me see, Saqib continues, if I can move that same aura onto someone else as well. He concentrates and then stops. Alright. We could be in trouble. If I try to focus on Drum, I'm going to lose my focus on you. So I'm sorry. It's... it's you for the time being. Don't apologize, Nat says brightly. I'm probably the one that failed to resist that horrible gibbering thing the most, right? So yeah, I'll take it. The Shadow Dark protection from evil spell is tremendously powerful in this particular environment. But as Saqib has just discovered, its purpose can only be placed upon one character. The intended surprise attack comes from below. But as noted, all the characters are ready. So it's up to initiative roles. I'm going to give a plus two to the attackers, since they know where the characters are, and the characters don't necessarily know that they're about to be attacked from below. Characters three, attackers eight. Glittering black spider shapes, each embellished with a device like a gauntlet superimposed upon a sun, surge up, seemingly from thin air at the character's feet. Let's start with the disadvantage attack on Nat. A Nat 1. The spider gets itself tangled up with another spider. Attack on Drum. Crit! Attack on Locinda. Success. Attack on Saqib. That's an 11 for a total of 14. That's a miss. Let's take a round for damage and then con saves. Drum takes seven piercing damage, and he needs to make a DC12 con SV, which he does fairly easily rolling an 11. He doesn't take any poison damage, but seven of his hit points is serious. Now we move to Locinda. She takes five piercing damage and she rolls a natural 20 to resist the poison. That's a luck token for Locinda, which could be very handy in the immediate future. Since the characters were ready but just a fraction slow, they get the right of reply as the spiders use their move action to depart into a different plane. The spider that rolled a natural one against Natalie won't be in any position to take a move away. So logically, therefore, all four characters attack it. No disadvantage. And it may come in handy in this particular round. And that gets a solid hit. Nat plunges her plus one dagger in. And the monster seems half dead almost immediately. The dagger finding a crevice behind its chitinous head. That's seven damage. And finally, yes, I think I will spend that luck token for Locinda. She rolls an 18 on the second attempt, which will definitely kill it based on her simple melee bonus. One of the four spider things is dead. As the four adventurers catch their breath and make sure the torches are still well alight. Saqib looks anxiously at Drum with a question in his eyes. The young ranger is obviously fairly hard hit, but Drum shakes his head in response. Get your spells ready, priest. Let's be ready for the next attack. I think those creatures were planar walkers. The kind of things that Garrick has spent a career fighting. Could be from beneath, could be from above.

Locinda 10:39

Did it seem like they were guarding something? It felt more like they were trying to drive us forward.

Speaker 2 10:48

Locinda mutters uneasily. She uses a torch to shine this way and that over the body of the dead spider.

Locinda 11:03

You know something about that kind of stuff, Saqib? What do you make of that marking?

Saqib 11:10

Well that's definitely a black gauntlet.

Speaker 1 11:14

Since they are taking a turn to examine this, I'm going to roll another encounter check. Yes, these spiders attack again. This time, three from all sides at once. One, seemingly fascinated by Shatterspike, launches itself at Drum. And the other two, apparently offended by the feeling of good around Natalie, both focus on her. Initiative. Again, the spiders win the initiative 3-1. All of those spiders are successful, despite protection from evil. Saqib has a luck token spare, and that might be very handy if it comes to saving against poison. Drum takes a further, one damage piercing, and fails the poison save. Natalie takes 12 poison, that's maximum, and makes one poison save, fails the second poison save. That is who Sakib's natural 20 luck token is going to be used on. Success this time. Just makes a DC12. Natalie blacks out as the deadly piercing mandibles of the spiders strike home. This is Sakib's time for healing, cure wounds. That's an 18, no problem at all. Meanwhile, Drum nearly sunders a spider and Locinda backing him up. Scores a natural twenty, finishing it. That's a second spider dead before it can disappear. The other two spiders use their movement to retreat into the other plane, and Saqib bends to check on Nat who is blinking awake, having been restored to full hit points thanks to that excellent cure wounds. The party at the end of the round has slain a second spider and is sitting on a luck token. Did the torch go out? I get a very low yes but, so Locinda quickly lifts it up and relights it within the movement section of that same round.

Locinda 14:12

The good news is there aren't more of them attacking. Just those same three. And we got another one. Saqib, how's Nat?

Saqib 14:26

She'll be alright. I think I need to cast protection from evil again.

Speaker 1 14:33

Here we go.

Speaker 2 14:35

Good luck, Nat, he says, giving her hand a quick clasp. It's a terrible roll. Tymora turns her back on Saqib. And now the party has to question whether or not it should press on. Nat had been the driver of the move to this end of the tunnel, so I'm going to give her another morale check. She's now uncertain. I think we should at least see what's round the corner, Drum says, gesturing ahead. It can be now seen that there's a left turn. Practically a right angle, although the natural rock that they're walking through makes that a little harder to tell. But f *** but for all of the Gods sake, we need to stick together whatever it is we do. The party cautiously, both torches alight, circles each other, making its way step by step to the corner and beyond. As mentioned last episode, it's another roughly seventy foot length, this time northeast. So all their torches will show the party is tunnel stretching away. They've work their way cautiously forward, and then the spiders attack again. This time, definitely from behind. They're trying to drive the party forward to the end of the tunnel, to where their dread master waits. Once again, as though driven to attack the bearer of Shatterspike, one spider targets Drum. The other spider, Locinda: here's initiatives. Once again, the spiders easily make the top initiative. The attack on Locinda is successful, but Drum manages to pull out of the way the poison mandible scraping along his rugged armor. However, his armor has not been mended since the Ankheg tore into it, so I will check. Did the mandible find a notch? Yes, it did. Even so, the armor class total is still 14, and the total attack was only 13. So I'm going to say that Drum feels a splash of poison on his skin. Locinda takes two points piercing, and she needs to resist poison, and she only rolls an 11, which is one off. Time to spend that luck token. 16, much better. She resists the poison. Drum scores another nat 20! Drum slices back at his opponent and scores a nat 20. Locinda scores a 16. The other two attack at disadvantage. Here's Nat. Miss. Here's Saqib: Misses. However, Drum's damage should be enough to tear that phase spider apart. It slices through the spider and into the next spider. Locinda's short sword hammers down, severely wounding that spider, but not quite killing it. In the movement round, it drops away into the other plane. Our party hit points are as follows. Drum is on 23 hit points. Lucinda is on 16 hit points. Natalie is back to her full at 12 hit points. And Saqib is on 20 hit points. But Saqib is out of spells.

Saqib 19:12

I think it's time to retreat. If we can! Look.

Speaker 2 19:29