Dark Sun Encounters: Fine Strands of Death

Story recap of our D&D Encounters session at Dragon’s Refuge in Peotone, IL:

Phye finds herself walking alone down a dark corridor as the earth begins to violently shake and rumble. Chunks of earth and rock thrust up to grab her body, encasing her in an earthen tomb of darkness. She suddenly snaps awake not realizing she had nodded off during their short rest after the battle with the undead. It seems her mind has been filled with some sort of psychic echoes of an unknown source, just like Shikkir mentioned he experienced  during their rest in the cave. What forces are at work in this place?

The team presses onward, finding that the natural cave formation is slowly showing more signs of being worked, tunnels seem to have been widened, slopes have crude steps carved into them, and there seem to be more signs of previous adventurers.

As they come around a corner, they are astonished to find a room covered in a thick growth of  crystals, flickering brilliantly with purple light as their torchlight throws dancing pattern across the room.

Yuka walks forward to investigate what look like the remains of an adventuring party, but as he nears the bodies he once again feels an evil necrotic energy surrounding them, even as the bones of the fallen reanimate into decrepit skeletons. Purple necrotic energy fills ancient abandoned gauntlets as they take on a life of their own and begin skittering around the floor.

Uneased by the grotesque scene, Yuka attempts an awkward swing at the rising monstrosities, but is too off kilter to land a hit.

Meanwhile the rest of the group watches this unfold from the entrance and doesn’t notice that a large crystal seems to be creeping across the ceiling. Suddenly dropping right in front of them, the creature reveals itself to be a large spider made of the very crystals growing in this room. The torchlight reflects and glints in the spider’s body and seems to grow brighter and brighter until the energy is released and bursts forth from the spider’s body. Shikkir, Barcan, Phye and Castri all stumble back, blinded by the brilliance. They each in turn try to swing wildly and destroy this crystal spider, but they all miss their mark. Castri manages to smash some crystals on the wall, releasing a swirling mass of psychic energy that glows eerily around his weapons.

Yuka manages to regain his composure as he takes a mighty swing at one of the skeletons and critically smashes it into nothing but dust and bone splinters. On the ground below him, a couple of the animated gauntlets leap onto him grabbing and clawing. They manage to inflict several wounds and overwhelm him enough to preventing him from moving from his spot.

The spider takes advantage of his prey being blind and sinks his crystal fangs into Barcan.  Leaving it’s victim racked by the pains of poison seeping into his system, the spider deftly hides itself within the crystals cluttering the back of the cavern.

The party’s eyes finally clear and they rush forward destroying gauntlets and skeletons. The monsters seem to be dying easy enough but are attacking viciously, wounding several party members. Barcan lights up the cavern with a brilliant spell and calls down a blazing starfall of energy that shreds through several of the animated gauntlets and clearly illuminates the crystal spider lurking in its web toward the back of the cave. Yuka having been freed of the gauntlet, charges toward the spider, not noticing the razor sharp crystalline webbing along the floor and slices up his legs profusely.

Its prey refusing to die, the spider crawls across the ceiling and drops down behind Phye and Castri, blasting them with another blinding barrage of light. Both stumble back again, this time into the razor sharp web that just cut down Yuka.

Regrouping their efforts, Shikkir and Castri are able to take down the spider and Barcan finishes off the remaining skeletons with another blazing starfall.

Yuka discovers a piece of armor encased in a large crystal that seems to be the origin spot for these crystal growths. Breaking it out, it pulses with a magical energy. Perhaps this was the source of this strange chamber. Meanwhile Barcan and Castri discover a hole partially covered by the spider’s webs that seems to drop down to a further chamber.

Too be continued next week….