September 5, 2009 - The party battle more kuo-toas and battle some vicious, gnashing, acid-spitting kuo-toa young.
Huron, Faust, Snake Eyes/Xizor, Wrenn, Razeteron, Ragnarok, Briggs
The Stormhammers are joined by some newcomers to the party - Faust, a thin human wizard, and a gnome rogue named Wrenn. They and Snake Eyes follow the party's path to the Pit of Jaws and descend into Bhal-Hama. They meet up with the rest of the party as the others are recovering from their huge battle in the three-floor shrine room.
Snake Eyes heads to the top to investigate the platform with no apparently walkway or ledge leading to it. He pokes the air around it a bit before discovering a turnable switch in the wall. He turns the one on his side, and someone turns the other side, and a walkway extends to the platform.
Going through the doors on the platform, the hall branches in opposite directions. One towards a set of double doors, the other towards a curtained off area. They sneak towards the curtained area and Wrenn spots some suspicious floor tiles, which they gingerly step over and avoid touching.
They enter through the curtains only to spot a number of Kuo-toa guards and whips (and minions) waiting for them. The room appears to be a living quarters, with a stream or something on the other side, and a small altar to Blibdoolpoolp in the corner. Wrenn quickly corners one of the soldiers in the corner and sets to work, annihilating it quickly. Huron charges at a whip across the room, only to slip and fall prone, sliding right past it and over a small stone wall with a bed of running water on the other side. As he stands, he notices slimy, quivering forms sliding and swimming over him - what appear to be small, vaguely-humanoid shaped tadpoles.
Faust also enters the room and summons a dwarf skeleton crackling with electricity. Snake Eyes tries to sneak around the outside, but the whips use their pincer staffs and lightning strikes to push him back. Lightning arcs between the two whips and the altar, increasing the potency of their lightning attacks.
Other than Huron performing abysmally (if memory serves correctly he didn't hit a single time during the entire fight) the Stormhammers polish off the kuo-toas with relative ease. At one point someone blasts a burst of lightning into the water, burning and killing many of the kuo-toa young. Afterwards they find a stack of decorative bowls and a small idol to Blibdoolpoolp, all of which go into the bag of holding.
They head across to the double doors and Wrenn picks the lock open, and sneaks inside. Inside the floor is destroyed and sinks down below them into rubble, and murky water and plants gurgle underneath. Compared to the "pool" or "pond" feel of the rest of the temple, this room seems almost swampish. A huge heap of rubble lies in the center of the room but there seems to be a cleared path leading around it. Wrenn sneaks in and spots one of the kuo-toa young lurking in a small tunnel through the rubble. He dashes forward and squeezes into the hole and crawls after it. (As a gnome, he is able to crouch and go through, but a medium-sized character would have to crawl on his hands and knees).
Wrenn pursues it though the short tunnel, and it exits into an open space - but a larger one takes its place, blocking the exit. Then, a second one pops into the tunnel behind Wrenn from a branching tunnel, trapping him inside. To make matters worse, the party then discovers these creatures are constantly lashing and biting all around them, which in game terms deals instant damage to anyone who ends their turn next to one. Wrenn starts getting slashed and bitten, but lashes back and deals some heavy damage back.
The rest of the party hears the commotion and run down the destroyed floor to help. Ragnarok and Briggs try to help Wrenn with ranged attacks, as they can't/don't want to enter the tunnels. The others run around the mound of rubble and are ambushed by a few more of the small kuo-young. Rounding the corner of the rubble are two more of the larger ones (juveniles) which spit acid at them. A swarm of tiny younglings pour out of the crevices in the rubble and attack, as well.
The Stormhammers drop many of the small younglings (which are minions) quickly, and dispatch the juveniles and swarms fairly easily, but overall take heavy damage from the constant gnashing auras. (At one point Huron charges into the fray to help Razeteron and ends up next to three of them, which combine to slash him up pretty good.) After killing the last one, they desperately need an extended rest.
Someone: Okay, so what we do is crawl into these tunnels and sleep there. DM: What!! Hahaha, okay so while you sleep someone comes in, stuffs rocks in the exits and leaves. Game over.
They decide to go back to the previous room with the stream and riverbed/baby kuo-toas, since it has a single door which they can block off. They finish exploring the room first though, and discover that looping around the rubble mound, is an unbroken section of floor (essentially a ledge 10' up) with a large, 20' wide tunnel carved into the rock behind it and going off into the darkness. On the unbroken floor is an exotic shag rug. They take the rug and quickly leave before something comes out of the tunnel to investigate.
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