• Randimir - Cleric 4 / Magic-User 3
• Maervahr - Magic-User 6
• Galarius
• Fandilas

We are back in the Wistari Village, a village of Wood Elves located in the heart of the Western Reach of the Hollow.

In the last session, they had killed between 50 and 60 Xvarts at the location of Taughannock Falls. It is a short walk on the east side of the river to get there from Wistari. They call it the River Way.

This is the date in which many, many Xvarts were killed at Taughannock Falls.

We are going to take the boat upriver to reach Taughannock Falls and finish off the Xvarts.

Maervahr casts Invisibility on the entire party and we find a place to dock the boat. We head up the River Way and approach from the east side. There is no guard contingent found around the area but we do notice 4 Xvarts on the lower pulley system and another 4 on the upper pulley where the platform is raised to the high point.

Since we are all Invisible, we can bypass the Xvarts but there is a 4-in-6 chance we might get noticed. We head for the path under the falls, trying to keep quiet, until…Randimir kicks a stone…it goes rolling. Suddenly, the Xvarts start looking around. Maervahr uses his Psionic Invisibility to remain completely undetected.

The Xvarts are not able to find us so we just continue on our way. We notice one Xvart is waving to another one and then gestures to a rope. The other one then shakes the rope as they scan the area. The Xvart looks perplexed.

We move up the switchback path and proceed up, slower than we normally would. We are looking around for markings and such and then about halfway up the path, we come upon the place where they were bombarded in the previous session. Fandillas notices a hole a few feet up in the cliffside face that goes further into the cliffside face.

Fandillas grabs Maervahr's hand and points out the hole. Fandillas looks inside and can make out some glowing orange eyes. He feels as though they are staring into his soul. Fandillas writes something in the ground:

Xvart > Should I open, Y or N

Maervahr checks Y…and the handle moves easily revealing a carefully concealed secret door. There is a grinding noise on the floor and exclamations of alarm resound through the eye hole.

We count at least 8 of the Xvarts. Maervahr's Weasel alerts us to the danger within. One Xvart misses since we won the surprise. The area opens up to a large room.

Maervahr saves Fandilas by pulling him back as Galarius runs inside!

Further beyond the door are several more silhouettes and some more tunnels in the back. There are a total of 16 Xvarts. Galarius swings his 6' long sword and does a full sweep attack. Randimir follows in, Galarius cuts down 3 of them instantly but it appears the Xvarts were prepared for a charge.

5 of them will retaliate with spears as one spear strikes, Galarius takes 12 damage.

Fandillas casts Sleep, which knocks out many leaving only 2 remaining. Fandillas then moves into combat. Galarius and Randimir kill 2 more.

Maervahr pulls out his lantern while Randimir heals Galarius for 8 hp. Fandillas is using the magic scimitar which is also glowing. Randimir brought along a ring that is still attuning to him.

Amongst the dead are many Xvart sized spears that are about 3' long. There are 16 of them.

• 134 sp.

The room has numerous crude cots made with foliage based bedding, dried sticks and logs. They are not comfortable. All of the 16 Xvart guards are slain.

We check the passages and see that two have stairs going up. To the left, a corridor stretches up to areas unknown. We proceed, moving about 6“ per turn.

We get a 3.

The party goes down the hallway and we hear a noise up ahead. We notice several small creatures in the room beyond the corridor. Fandilas charges in also and the party is at 6” distance when Maervahr goes Psionically Invisible. Galarius and Fandillas both charge forth. We enter another barracks area where there are another 16 Xvarts, wielding swords.

The Xvarts have AC 7 with no type. Fandilas gets a +4 to attack and damage as the scimitar is a +4!

7 of the Xvarts are slain by the charge but the others are tetaliating against the charge. 2 of the Xvarts have harpoons and one has a net. 1 hits Galarius for 2 damage but none hit Fandillas.

Maervahr runs in to flank the Xvarts and notices that there is a single tunnel, Randimir charges into the rear of the melee. All 4 of his attacks hit and 4 are killed.

On the next attack, Randimir missed but we easily cut down the rest of the Xvarts and all are slain amongst the barracks.

One turn passes after combat. We explore the room.

• 115 sp.

We head north from this room and once again, we must…

The party enters a large chamber and the light falls over a huge group of Xvarts. These are all unarmed females but they do not look like normal Xvarts. There is some furniture here and random objects. It appears like a lounge room.

We some more glowing eyes through the darkness. There are many more females in the room and they look at us, frozen in place with inaction. Some have knives or small clubs and some sling bullet pouches.

Maervahr casts Lightning Bolt on the females Xvarts. Galarius and Fandillas charge into battle against the 60 women.

Fandillas hits one and Galarius hits twice dealing 12 and 6 damange. Fandillas hit one for 5 damage and then 8 of them fall to Sleep. Immediately, 11 of the Xvarts are dropped and 9 are blasted instantly by the Lightning Bolt. We kill 23 of them as some of the others pull out knives while some others take out clubs.

Galarius has 8 attacks against him. Disregard that because Fandillas cast Sleep. 12 of the Xvarts go to sleep.

Randimir also cast Sleep and he puts 10 to sleep. All of the Xvarts are dropped that were attacking Randimir. Maervahr moves into the room as one Xvart hits Galarius. He takes 2 damage and then another 5 are charging.

Galarius can attack with the retaliation 4 times using sweep attacks and he strikes, killing 3 of them. 2 more Xvarts make it to him attacking with clubs. One bashes his armor.

4 more Xvarts begin charging Randimir who has AC 3 but these ones have knives. None of them hit. There are 4 more attacks on Fandillas who hit on 17s, Two Xvarts hit Fandillas and he takes 2 damage total.

The Xvarts must make a Morale Check, which succeeds! The Xvarts ravenously fight on to defend their homes and 3 attack Randimir and miss. Fandillas is also missed and there are 5 going up against Galarius. None of them hit Galarius.

In the next round, there are 3 more dead Xvarts. Randimir has 3 attacking him with 1 on Fandillas with only 3 that remain standing.

Galarius killed 2 of them and Fandillas hits 3 times and kills one. None of the Xvarts managed to strike a blow on Randimir and now there is only one in melee with him. Randimir kills the one with a mace. Now we are in melee with the last two.

The last of the Xvarts are destroyed!

This area appears to be a big common room with the heavy stench of Xvarts lingering. We dispatch all of the sleeping Xvarts and then search the entire room. We find nothing of value in here.

Lantern light falls upon a nursery. 8 Xvart females stand amongst the juveniles that are all holding baubles.

There appear to be 40 juvenile Xvarts. Galarius and Randimir charge forward as 8 of the juveniles throw rocks at them. They are illuminated by the swords.

Maervahr casts Web and manges to ensnare 1/3rd of the group. 3 of them are now dead.

The female Xvarts and the children retaliate. 3 of them attack Randimir and Galarius as their targets. Randimir takes 1 damage but killed 9 juveniles.

At this point, there is a Morale Roll for this group but the 3 female Xvarts charge! Fandillas is stabbed for 4 damage. Meanwhile, 17 juveniles try to overbear us. 6 of them are on 2 of us and there are 5 on Fandillas.

2 of the juveniles get through to Fandillas and Randimir. Fandillas merely shrugs off the juvenile attacks and then 3 Xvart females attack. Maervahr casts Burning Hands while Galarius kills 2 of them with punches.

Burning hands go off and there are 11 dead juveniles hit by the fan of flames. One of the females is also killed in the fires. Now there are 2 females and 8 juveniles left.

Since there are only two left, we simply attack with normal sweep attacks which eliminates all these Xvarts.

The female Xvarts do not have anything of value but we do find a paddle with a rubber ball attached. Fandilas grabs it.

We killed all 68 of them. Eliminated all the Xvarts in this place but they had nothing of value.

We notice a terrible smell, which slowly spreads and becomes known to us. It does not smell like undead but more like the smell of excrement. We can see a smaller corridor on the other side.

The party continues south down a hallway until the smell is OVERPOWERING. We avoid the smelly room and head to the east where we come across another corridor on the right. Beyond this is a smaller chamber leading to a small room for occupants but with no cots or anything. Inside are some random knick-knacks like some broken wood and a small barrel in the north west corner. It has 3 spears sticking out. Maervahr grabs the spears.

We head further east and the corridor turns to a room with 4 cots and 4 footlockers. It is a little nicer than the barracks and we find several Xvart blades.

Randimir cast the Find Traps spell but does not detect any traps.

• Footman's mace (Maervahr's psionic Detection of Magic finds no magic).
• 12 gp
• 7 gp
• 8 gp
• 3 hand axes
• 7 gp

We head north and poke our heads around the corner.

As we peek around, we see a group of 6 Xvarts with spears that are standing around a corner. Beyond them, the corridor continues.

Maervahr moves to engage in melee but first goes psionically Invisible. Galarius and Fandillas charge forth and meet up with the Xvarts in the corridor beyond.

The Xvarts are using maces and two attack Galarius. Both maces hit Galarius for a total of 9 damage!

Maervahr is also carrying a lantern which lights up the area. His light might inform them of his position but he moves up anyway. We see additional forms in the corridor to the north, covered in fur. They are man sized. They also have terrible claws and the heads of rats! Wererats!

Maervahr attacks one of the non-leader types while Randimir casts Web, which takes 2 segments. After one more segment a different spell goes off from our enemies. The target is Galarius!

Galarius is level 4 but after failing his save, the enchantment overtakes Galarius and he falls to the ground. We did hear some words of magic being spoken from beyond our light.

Now, Fandillas needs to save vs spell. Fandillas becomes unwieldy and impossible to hold. They are moving 2.4 inches per segment and Fandillas and Randimir are the only two targets for the Wererats. Both of them are going for Fandillas, who is struck and takes 5 damage.

The 2 leaders are attacking the front line, one attacks Randimir and misses and the other one misses Fandillas.

Randimir casts Cause Fear. Although we cannot see what is back down the passage, we know that is the location of the enemy spell caster. The spell acts like a Wand of Fear with a 6“ cone that is 2” in diameter.

Randimir and Fandillas are now up. A thrown dagger does not land against a target and Fandillas takes 4 damage. One of the Wererats is terrorized for 4 rounds.

Maervahr casts Mirror Image while Randimir casts Hold Person. 2 of the targets were Wererats, 2 of the leaders and one of the regular Xvarts. One Wererat is overcome with terror and flees north while one of the robed figures shoots flames toward our party. The flames shoot out and strike Fandillas and Randimir for 2 damage. Randimir loses his spell.

There are 3 additional Mirror Images of Maervahr. Fandillas drinks a potion of Fire Breath, or what he believes that to be, and unleashes the full strength of fire in a 20' wide column. It completely envelops the remaining Wererat. There is now the smoking, roasting corpse of a Wererat that is now unmoving. We see the 3 Xvart Magic-Users trying to stab Fandillas but none of the daggers hit.

More attacks against the group and both hits on Randimir deal 5 damage. One attack deals 6 damage to Fandilas. Fandilas DROPS!

We now see that there are 4 robed Xvarts, one regular Xvart and 2 Xvart leaders.

Randimir has AC 3 but this time, none of them hit him. His other Hold Person spell goes off and all 3 of the Xvarts are held in place. We now see the 4 cloaked Xvarts.

After Maervahr casts Phantasmal Force, suddenly Flaming Spiders crawl up all of the Xvarts as they start screaming and trying to brush the Flaming Spiders off their bodies. The two held Xvarts pass out from the pain.

After a saving throw, another of the Xvart does not think it is an illusion and passes out.

We dispatch all of the remaining Xvarts.

We start gathering up our fallen and searching the bodies while Maervahr uses Clairaudience on the door behind us. He can hear only silence beyond.

• 27 gp.
• 2 silver daggers.

The Wererats did not have treasure.

We retreat through the secret door and head back to the surface level.

We come outside from the secret door and find ourselves on the upper level platform.

Just outside we are confronted with many more Xvarts. Randimir casts Hold Person and finishes the spell. The Xvarts need 20s and only one got a 20 and saved. He starts nudging his friend. Galarius flings his javelin into one of them causing 2 damage. The javelin strikes the Xvart but it is not killed.

One retaliates and flings a harpoon at Galarius and then grabs another harpoon off of his frozen buddy.

They rolled a natural 20 and the other harpoon hits Randimir for 2 damage. Now, the Xvarts are stripped of all their weapons so it tries to throw a sword at us. If it hits it might do 1d4 damage but it flies precariously past Maervahr.

Galerius hits furiously, dealing 6 damage while Maervahr lands on the edge of the platform and he casts Burning Hands. The entire platform goes tumbling into the falls below as it burns. Maervahr had safely stepped off of it.

That ends the encounter with the remaining Xvarts outside.

We head back to the Wistari village…

• 195 gp
• 115 sp

• 3 gp
• We get 1 gp for hand axes.

• 200 gp
• 135 sp

We get: 50 gp each 33 sp each.

55.5 Treasure xp to be included.

Fandillas's Spellbook: sleep, spider climb, identify

Randimir's Spellbook: read magic, sleep, hold portal, message, spider climb, rope trick, scare.

Ed learns Identify and Hold Portal during his level up.

We find a Wand of Fear (id 43) and a +4 Scimitar (id 42) which go to Fandillas

Leather Armor of Crimson +3 (id 44) which goes to Fandillas

Maervahr gets 526 xp

Blood Moon (6) the 8th, 495, will be the earliest date for our next session.

If unencumbered, a character can apply their DEX bonus to missile fire and reaction for less surprise segments. We can also apply the DEX modifier to Saving Throws for some spells, such as Lightning Bolt (as long as the spell is something to dodge).