Abyss Modified session 7

OUT OF THE ABYSS SPOILERS AHEAD  

The party searched the remains of the troglodytes finding very minimal useable gear and their lair was full of refuse. The shaman did have some mold and a few odd mushrooms on its person, which Godric pocketed. Shuushar mentioned they would need to cross parts of the waterways and unless they could swim, they might want to find a boat. Dinak called out to the dwarves again and eventually they rowed back to the group. For a few sapphires they bought passage to a shore near Sloobludop. Dinak had seen three dwarves during their first interaction and once aboard noticed two more that were below decks. There were two spell casters, a warrior, and two that knew their way around traps. The party made themselves at home on the boat, Slim Jim wandering underdeck and finding chains covered in blood, sized for both large, medium, and small creatures, it seemed these dwarves trafficked people as well as mushrooms. On their water journey they traveled between large waterways, passing a sunken city, avoiding falling piercers, fended off a scrag troll that grabbed onto the back of the ship, bumped some long eels with the boat, but made it safely to the banks within sight of Sloobludop. 

They thanked the dwarves and started looking around for any supplies to fill up on, like mushrooms. They soon noticed they were being watched and a group of Koa-toa stood up from hiding. Their leader, a priest of some sort invited the party to surrender and be willing sacrificed to the Deep Father. After deliberation Annahatta started throwing spells, sick of standing around and talking. The party made quick work of most of the goons, Shuushar getting caught in most of the net, Dinak sinking multiple arrows into the priest, Godric using booming blade on the priest after running up to him, Orion cutting through the minions, Fione using flame blade, Xanaphia using chill touch, Slim Jim was able to get in a few good sneak attacks, Lady Hestia got in some inspiring words, some mocking words, and some healing words, Annahatta used some magic missiles, and their allies were able to stave off death from taking them. The priest did not like what was happening. He cast spirit guardians, which gave Godric a rough time, the next round lost concentration on the spell by using hold person on Godric and entering melee with the rest of the party. The priest walked up to Lady Hestia and domed her with his electrical crustacean topped staff, knocking her out with one critical hit. There was a slight panic for the party, their wizard bard and their bard warlock were both effectively out of the battle, which was about half the healers. The rest of the party ganged up on the priest and eventually he fell, and Lady Hestia was healed before having to make any death saves. 

After they looked for loot, divvied it up, and healed a bit another priest wearing different colored robes approached them, no visible weapons. He said his name was Ploob, his daughters’ minions had attacked the party and seeing that they had survived they had skills he required. He was a priest of the Deep Mother and was in the midst of a turf war with his own daughter. He seemed trustworthy to the party. If the party would help him, Ploob would give them supplies for the road as well as advice. He would not go into detail out in the open so the party followed him into the city of the fish men and in his house were feasted and offered wine. The food was un-poisoned and the wine seemed to have some kind of blood so the party passed on drinking that. Root, their kobold came out of hiding and ate an entire giant isopod himself, sleeping in the shell afterword. They made plans to overthrow the daughter’s regime of the Deep Father by pretending to be a sacrifice of surrender from Ploob to his daughter’s cause. 

In the morning they made their way to the sacrificial grounds. All was going to plan until the ground and water seemed to shake. Strange evil looking manta rays in the water started grabbing swimming Koa-toa and blueish blood sprayed from the depths. The sound of stomping came from the water and a huge two headed baboon with tentacle arms rose from the depths, Demogorgon had come to Sloobludop. Panic hit the watery street, some of the koa-toa dropped down in worship, some ran the other way. Many of the party succumbed to madnesses from demon lord proximity, Annahatta, Slim Jim, and Lady Hestia were paralyzed, Orion babbled, both Xanaphia and Godric hallucinated vividly and saw dark realms with empty thrones, and Dinak and Fione were fine, just trying to wrangle the rest of the group for fleeing. They watched as the drow with the spore cough jumped into the water, Jimjar started eating his own arm, Shuushar got smashed by an errant tentacle. The orc and the dwarf were oddly holding hands, but Telegar was able to get them to carry the paralyzed party members. They all fled, behind them hearing screaming and death, eventually finding a secret way out of the city, stealing some boats, and traveled down a narrow stream, and after a few hours of drifting they found a crystal lagoon. 

The lagoon seemed to have a few tunnels exiting under water as well as three unmarked exits on land. There were the remains of a small orc camp and the party collected some of the quartz crystals from the walls. The party decided they would attempt to wander and find Blingdenstone, the home of the deep gnomes. The other options were a kingdom of mushrooms, a drow city, or dark dwarves.