After clearing out the castle, the party was joined by a rogue, Darien.
An eladrin sorceress appeared in the courtyard and told them a tale of lost artifacts being used to power an invasion from the Underdark. After a few questions, the party got ready to retrieve the artifacts. Tallinn loaned them a staff which would teleport them to the artifacts and teleport them back after an hour.
After speeding through the earth, the party made out their landing spot. Callie and Lia flubbed their landings and fell into excavations to either side of a ridge. The rest of the party landed on the ridge. A voice out of the darkness yelled “Trespassers!” and battle was joined. Darien the rogue lept from place to place stabbing furiously with his daggers. TheBeast and jd4 took on two drow miners and were surprised by the drow’s darkness ability (TheBeast was unsurprised). One of the drow managed to escape into the darkness.
Next came a room with a runic pattern on the floor. Callie and jd4 managed to puzzle out the pattern with ease and made their way past in record time. Rather than puzzle out the door’s riddle, they bypassed it with thievery checks. Next came enduring a long slog through the darkness.
A couple of halflings were discussing soup recipes when Lia and Darien snuck up on them and opened with excessive violence. The halfling gadgeteer unleashed his statues, but Whyd subverted them with her magical arts. Without backup, the halflings fell quickly.
Carrying light into a cavern of softly glowing mushrooms proved to be a mistake as the mushrooms exploded when bright light hit them.
The final room had a large group of duregar working on a ziggurat. The duregar swarmed toward the party. Whyd sent out a burst of fire. It missed, so she recovered and sent out another that wiped out the majority of the duregar. Darien made his way around the ziggurat and spotted a beholder and the missing drow.
The bholder proved to be a formidable foe, particularly the eye-beams zapping around at the start of the player’s turns. Whyd disarmed his damage reduction shield. For what might be the first time ever, TheBeast hit with one of his daily powers and did a boatload of damage. Callie kept trying to position herself to get maximum healing to the party. Both jd4 and Darien were petrified by one of the beams. Eventually the party managed to beat him down, retrieved the last of the artifacts, and headed back to the surface.
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The adventure was OnlineDM’s Descent Into Darkness.
The 1-hour in game time limit worked really well for keeping things moving. There wasn’t even the usual cursory interest in diplomatic tactics, it was straight for the throat every time. That worked pretty well with a rogue in the party.
I really messed up the beholder fight. First off I forgot about the damage reduction for half the fight. Then I used his eye rays randomly on his turn instead of using them strategically. Petrify really sucks – I just don’t like taking a turn away when it already takes so long to give each player a turn. I should have taken away the glowing mushrooms and used the time for the boss fight.
Overall it was fun. It was great to finish off an adventure in a sitting.