Well met, fellow adventurers! After a bit of a late start, our intrepid party delved once more into the treacherous depths of the Dungeon of the Mad Mage in our latest session. This week was packed with exploration, bizarre encounters, and a few surprisingly helpful (if somewhat unsettling) allies.
Our session kicked off with the distant sounds of a goblin army doing… something… to the north. Following the sounds and a branching hallway, the party discovered the aftermath of a brutal encounter. Dead goblins littered a corridor, bearing strange punctures and ripped flesh. Stealthily moving forward, Anna scouted ahead, finding two more dead goblins before the party encountered the culprits: two grotesque grells in a larger room.
Combat ensued swiftly! These “big floating brains with wide sharp beaks” and “ten long tentacles” proved to be formidable foes. Spells flew, crossbow bolts whizzed, and even a desperate attempt to fling a dead goblin was made! Ultimately, the party prevailed, though not without Fanus succumbing to the grell's poison and paralysis. A short rest was necessary to recover.
The exploration continued, leading the party to a room with five pillars made of mortared humanoid bones. Moving on, they discovered a closed door, which Anna carefully checked. This led to a room with a faintly glowing longsword stabbed into a wooden armor stand, with skeletal remains at its base. The sword, pulled free with mage hand, turned out to be a longsword enchanted with the light spell. However, attempting to store it proved problematic when Anna found herself unable to let go of the cursed blade. The only immediate solutions seemed to be remove curse or a drastic amputation!
Further exploration revealed a hidden door in the southern alcove of the sword room. Skipping this earlier proved to be a bit of a blunder as it led directly to a hallway they had previously walked around. The next door opened with a crash, as a stack of old ceramic plates tumbled out, triggering an alarm!
Ignoring the potential consequences, the party sent Bartholomew the bat to scout a large room beyond. There, they found three stone statues of Melairkyn Nobles, their names crossed out and replaced with goblin monikers like “Smelly Bottom,” “Stupid Skull,” and “Born Toothless”. A broken white wooden staff lay at the base of the central statue. Gala Adore mended the staff with mending and identified it as a staff of charming.
Continuing their delve, the party encountered more doors, one leading to a long zigzag hallway that ended in a dead end. Another revealed more dead members of the Undertakers, a gang known for dressing as vampires, along with more dead goblins. This room featured a stone fresco of a mountain and a recessed stone tub. Inside the tub, they discovered a stone key, thieves' tools, an explorer's pack, and a significant amount of coin. A silver ring engraved with dwarven fertility symbols was also found.
Upstairs, the party found a room with a high vaulted ceiling and a throne made of interwoven bleached bones, carved with snake heads. The room also contained the remains of a wyvern, more dead bandits and goblins, and three battered but alive goblins celebrating. Using a minor illusion to intimidate them, Gala Adore convinced the goblins that he was their new master. With No Fanus translating, the goblins excitedly recounted their battles with the grells and the Undertakers.
Intrigued by the bone throne, Gala Adore instructed the goblins to claim it. The result was… dramatic. As a goblin sat upon the throne, the serpent armrests animated, gripping and biting him. The goblin was swiftly paralyzed by poison. This display led to the selection of a new, smaller, and likely more cautious goblin leader. The party then looted the room, finding disguise kits and rations belonging to the Undertakers, as well as gold and a tiger eye gemstone from the dead goblins.
A hidden door, revealed by Anna backtracking, led to a room with a green copper helmet and a slender throne of green copper. Detect magic pointed to a wand in a hidden compartment in the ceiling, which was retrieved with mage hand. Identified as a wand of secrets, it can detect secret doors and traps.
The party then cautiously entered a long corridor flanked by 38 granite statues of human warriors, their features defaced. Cobwebs hung thick in the arched ceiling. A side room contained the maggot-ridden corpse of a dead human. Another door opened to reveal a room filled with thousands of skulls!
Backtracking slightly, Anna spotted another hidden door. This led to the green copper throne room and the discovery of the wand of secrets.
Continuing their exploration, a sloping hallway led Bartholomew the bat to a room with a domed ceiling, a puddle of sizzling acid floating above an 8-foot-tall statue of a four-armed fish monster, and a one-foot square stone box. Using the key found earlier, Anna unlocked the box, which contained a dry, withered heart radiating necromantic magic. After some cautious examination with mage hand, the heart was identified as a wondrous item with a deadly curse: it swaps places with the attuned creature's living heart, instantly killing them.
The next few rooms yielded less threatening discoveries: an empty ten-foot square room where spectral adventurers appeared and vanished; a larger room with collapsed weapon racks and a hand axe embedded in a door; and a room with a stone sharpening wheel. Attempts to move the wheel failed until Gala Adore used mending, allowing Bartholomew to sharpen the ordinary hand axe.
Finally, the party encountered two double doors bearing a strange rune. As Anna opened the doors, a random magical effect washed over the party. In a stroke of incredible luck, Anna became immune to a host of debilitating conditions and is immediately stabilized if she drops to zero hit points for the next 24 hours!
However, their good fortune was short-lived. The doors opened into an extremely large room containing three large manacores! Prudence (and perhaps the need for more party members) dictated a hasty retreat, leaving this dangerous encounter for our next session.
What dangers await beyond the manacore's den? Will Anna be able to utilize her newfound resilience? And what will become of the cursed longsword? Find out next time in Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage!