Game session 29 of the Age of Worms is complete. Present characters included Aker Cruven (litorian ritual warrior), Eol Seregon (half-elf hexblade), Lyrin Sinbal (simian warmage), Morak Beardfist (shield dwarf fighter/rage cleric), Thoril Songsteel (human thug), and Valgen (human fighter).
Valgen led the party into the mirror maze discovered in the last session. Within, they encountered sliding mirrored walls and doppelganger fighters materializing seemingly out of nowhere. After some brutal fighting, the party eliminated all the shape changers. Continuing through the maze, they discovered a door.
Within lay a large chamber split in two levels. The bottom, larger level, was where the party entered, and a large table with a strange metal helmet and bubbling vats of liquids drew their attention to one side. One the other side, two flights of stairs led up a raised platform with a throne in the center. Seated upon it was Delfen “Yellowknife” Ondabar, Lyrin’s mentor! He arose and invited the party to enter and learn the truth of things. Once within, his form melted and shifted, and an unknown mage stood before them.
The party wasted no time moving in as the mage began tracing arcane movements with his fingers. Thoril plunged into a pit trap, falling forty feet but avoiding the nasty spikes. Valgen charged around the pit and moved up the stairs and to the side to pressure the caster. The magic-user’s spell, confusion, caught Eol in its grasp and sent him babbling incohorently around the room and back down the hall. The group edged closer, with the mightily-muscled lion-man (Aker) hauling Thoril out of the pit by a rope. Unfortunately, a slow spell affected Thoril and Valgen, severely hampering two more of the party members. Even so, Valgen kept moving toward the caster, which prompted him to change shape again, into the form of a hulking orc barbarian! He hefted the greataxe the wizard had, oddly, been carrying and struck Valgen with a mighty blow, which sent him on the retreat. Stoic Morak moved up to heal his ally and triggered a poisoned spear trap, which lightly injured him.
The ape-man, Lyrin, continued a barrage of deadly spells, including ionize and lightning bolt to brutalize the shape changer, but he remained standing. Then, the orc shifted back into the form of the wizard and disrupted the party even further when he unleashed a wall of fire to split the battlefield and isolate himself and Lyrin on one side. The simian quickly took a tactical maneuver to seek shelter outside in the hallway of the maze. As Eol continued to run about the maze blathering like an idiot and the flaming wall sent wave after wave of scalding heat over the party, the shape shifter moved down the stairs and performed a devastating maneuver. He shut and locked the hallway door.
Bravely, the battle-hardened dwarven priest uttered a silent prayer to Moradin and marched steadfastly through the blazing inferno! The fires scorched his armor, singed his beard and burned his flesh, but more devastating was the spear trap he triggered as he stepped through. The razor-edged spike drove completely through his body, inflicting critical damage that put the dwarf reeling, but still alive. His burning rage was all that kept him on his feet.
Seeing Morak move into the flames, Aker scooped the slowed Thoril up and ran through the fire. Valgen slowly marched toward the flames as well. On the other side, Aker and Thoril flanked the wizard, who immediately shifted into orc form and laid waste with his axe. Valgen and Morak began their approach as Aker unlocked and open the door to the maze, allowing Lyrin to return. Outnumbered and pinned down, the shape changer met his doom at the end of the thug’s longsword.
After ransacking the room and the secret chamber behind the throne, the party dug in, nursed their wounds and had some much needed rest. They analyzed some clues, telling them something is going down in the sewers, and they then headed toward the surface. In the flood room, while trying to maneuver a magic mirror back up to Sodden Hold, a surprise came upon them. A secret door flashed open, and a pair of drow warriors moved to attack. Stepping out of the shadows with them, a tall many-tentacled creature—a mind flayer! It unleashed a mind blast, which crushed the will of Aker and sent him reeling. The mind flayer then left, and the party massacred the drow soldiers.
Now the party stands in the flood room knowing a mind flayer is on the loose, they have to try and get out of this area through a flooded hallway, and there is something untoward happening in Waterdeep’s sewage system.