DavesGaming

Entering the city of Ust Natha was entering an alien world. Everything was different, architecture, sounds, smells, even the color of the light. But most of all was the people. Most were Drow elves, we also saw Deurgar Dwarves, Githyanki, Illithids all interacting and going about their business. And it was a harsh world, slaves were beaten in the street. Many were visible in cages, humans, trolls and others. We saw at least two deaths our first minutes in the city.
It was not a place any of us were comfortable in.

And we would be an odd looking team. With Drow the women are typically taller and stronger than the men. And the men are disallowed in the clergy of Lolth and the other foul Drow deities. But the women are, for reasons I’m unsure of, rarely if ever users of Arcane magic.
So right off, Keldorn is clearly the biggest of us, and I’m clearly the smallest. And both of our Arcane casters are women. So we will present ourselves as four warriors, with my sister as our rogue and Aerie as our priestess. Officially no mages.
And everything was about power and position. As “leader” I would be expected to run my team with uncompromising force. I should also appear as proud, and willing to use violence for any and every reason.
We all talked about this on our way to the city, I’m sure I can count on everyone to play along. I just hope no one points a “Detect Good” or “Know Alignment” in our direction…

I had identified myself as Veldrin at the front gate. We were expected but “late”. Apparently Adelon had killed the real Veldrin and her team several days ago. They were incoming refugees of a sort, but Drow don’t do refuge or show mercy. We were expected to prove our worth. We were directed to meet with Solaufein at the Male Fighter Society.

All three of us paladins noted he did NOT detect as evil. Fascinating. We were directed to meet with a Priestess back at the gate. She ordered us to rescue a noblewoman, Phaerie had been captured by the Illithids. And as the Drow army was busy elsewhere (why do I suspect this involves Irenicus?) this will be our job. Our chance to prove ourselves. Their information indicates she will be transported to an Illithid enclave south of here and should be arriving in a few hours.
Yeah, we know for a fact the enclave is now empty. But we didn’t encounter any Drow there, so indeed, she hasn’t arrived yet.

We set out at once for the spot. We had to fight through a bandit group along the way. They weren’t Drow, maybe surface adventurers? But they were not *good* people. We must have looked like just another Drow patrol to them. They were a good warm up for our coming battle.

Illithids are always a dramatic battle, but honestly they don’t intimidate us so much anymore. We were completely up to the challenge. Solaufein was the last of us still fighting, an umber hulk. I think he was a little surprised when I stepped up and slew the beast. He turned around and saw only dead enemies.
Phaerie seemed an unpleasent and ungrateful woman. She noted it was odd to be rescued by foreigners. And suggested we would all meet up back in Ust Natha… before running off.

First impressions of Phaerie were also our second and third impressions. She is really an unpleasant piece of work. All scheming and duplicity. We were rewarded with a night off to rest up. We would be needed again in the morning. It was suggested we might want to check out the city and take in the sights. I shuddered at the thought.

I could add that the decadence and oppression of the place was palpable. We kept our laughter and joking as subdued as we could, such sounds are unfamiliar here.

In the morning we met with Phaerie again. We were directed to a platform in the city where a Beholder was expected to arrive shortly.

After the brief fight, we were told we had some time off. Phaerie would have more for us soon.
When we met with her a little later, she said the Svirfneblin (Deep Gnomes) had grown disrespectful and arogant. We were to find and massacre a patrol of theirs.

Yikes! Our first actual moral conflict here. We would talk when we were away from the city.

On the way out, a Deurgar slave said his master would like a word with us.
An Aboleth! Holy Smokes! I’ve heard of such abominations but never seen one. They are fish-like creatures that live in the deepest seas of Toril. He communicated telepathically, and threatened to expose us as surfacers if we did not perform an evil chore for him. He wanted the brain of a Drow priestess.
Well, I think our friend the fish needed a lesson from the Drow in forcing moral conflicts. He was obviously a pure amateur. You know, evil, just bad at it.

So we talked. Obviously our opportunity with the gnomes was in securing “proof” of their demise, without any Drow witnesses.
We met up with Solaufein who was to accompany us, and told him we had this. Take a break, we’ll check in back in Ust Natha. It seemed to me, his heart was no more into this mission than my own.
We walked towards the Deep Gnome settlement where we had slain a demon earlier. And soon came across a patrol.

They were happy to provide some damaged gear to make the point. They even helped us dent up a helmet. I think we left some very confused gnomes with our friendly and helpful attitudes.

Returning to Ust Natha, Phaerie was just thrilled with our obvious viciousness. She is one sick woman! Next, she wanted us to kill Soluafein! Its been obvious there is tension between Phaerie and Soluafein, apparently its all deeply personal. Naturally I agreed to kill the smug jerk.

This place is messed up. We would take a cloak of his with his family crest on it, and let him go. He offered a parting blessing in the name of Eilistraee, the Drow goddess of love and beauty. That’s a *good* goddess.
He will live a hard life now as a loner and a renegade. At least everyone will think he’s dead. Good luck my friend.

We checked back in with Phaerie to report “the deed was done!” Now she wanted us to meet the matron of her household, at the City’s Temple of Lolth. They were working on something.

She was planning some ritual to aid the Drow army, and needed royal blood from one of their neighbor races. It just so happened we had some of that! Thank you Imoen.
Now I’d have to admit I was feeling a little tied in knots just now. Like the walls were closing in. We were helping an evil priestess with something dark. But I strongly suspected Silver Dragon Eggs would be at the center of what was to come.
Indeed. When we had left the temple Phaerie called us to her quarters again. She told us they were summoning a demon. And they would curry favor with a gift of Silver Dragon eggs. Shocking! I never saw that coming. Now Phaerie’s plan was, we would break into the Temple vault and replace the real eggs with fakes she had made. So when her mother offered the demon fake eggs she would be destroyed. Then Phaerie could offer the real eggs and finish the ritual.

So now, the good news was, we knew where the real eggs were and could get to them. The trick was, how to escape the city with them? Ardulace had sealed the city, no one would be getting in or out until the ritual was over. Amyntor said softly, “if it comes to it, we can carve our way out of here.” We’ll keep that as “Plan B”.
Now Soluafein presented us with a possible solution. He called to us from the shadows, he’d heard rumors of what was going on. He had a set of fake Silver Dragon eggs for us. Is there some artisan who specializes in fake eggs? If we run into Solaufein again I should offer him a job at De’Arnise.

We entered the temple and kept to the shadows. Up the stairs to where the vault was. Inside the vault were five guardian golems!

The other three were Stone Golems. They are generally a little bigger and tougher, but they lack that special defense against blades and arrows. So Keldorn, Skie and Imoen tore into them. Golems can hit hard, believe me I know. But we are up to this sort of fight now, and it went quickly.

Then we snuck back to Phaerie, and gave her the fake eggs from Soluafein. So this seems like a plan, all we have to do is stand quietly as a demon is summoned. Oh boy.

So that’s what we did. We stood there as Mother Ardulace performed her dark ritual. Soon a demon stood there. Ardulace confidently offered up Silver Dragon eggs. The demon laughed. I can assure that is NOT a pleasant sound. He offered he would help… if those eggs had been real.
Mother Ardulace went up in flames and left us in a shriek.

Now Phaerie stepped forward and offered Silver Dragon eggs.

Her fate was the same as her mother’s.

The demon demanded if there were any other offers. We kept quiet. He darkly laughed again and left. The ritual was complete. The city should be open? We need to move! Get out of here before anyone sees what’s happened.

Fortunately traffic in the city was not busy. Even so, we were several minutes from the front gates. We’ve been seen tromping around this city the last couple days, and seemed to draw no particular attention as we made for the gate.
I felt a huge relief as passed out of the city. They could still chase us down. But every step took us closer to Adalon’s cave.

We made it.

This was a beautiful moment. Adalon soon dispelled the illusion, and we were ourselves again. That was my favorite moment of the day.

Adalon then took us to a path heading up and out. This would take us to where the Drow army had marched out, into the surface world. We fought through some rear guard troops. And soon enough we were out in the sunlight! It never looked so wonderful! And then we were surrounded by a number of elven warriors. Regular surface elves.

I guess it wasn’t too surprising the elves were suspicious of us, we had just come via the same path an army of Drow had recently emerged from.
When they learned our goal was to track down the villian Irenicus, the reaction was strong. Clearly, they knew him. As near as I could tell, he was leading the Drow army to Suldanessellar. And he had stolen an item from them called the Rhynn Lanthorn, we would need to track that down to find our foe.

*****

Another update with a unique look. It was all Drow except for the end. That’s a lot of dark images!

Obviously I spent some points on videos this time. That first one with Imoen and the Aboleth was just for fun, but apologies. The renderer doesn’t quite seem to understand the physics of doodling in condensation on glass. And I had wanted Imoen to wink at the end. But five renders later, close enough!