Trip Back to Stahlmasts Lair (Recap from 12-30-22)

 

Trip Back to Stahlmasts Lair (Recap from 12-30-22)

 Hucksters Heroes, had a long rest in the Forest Inn, during their breakfast, Planning their next moves.

 (Da'Leysen the 23th of Sydenstar) They decided to go to the prison and question Sken. Mallik cast charm person and Skeen failed her save. At that point she revealed herself to be a self confirmed follower of Lolth, and that the “plot” of a "Kryn terrorist act" was really a gambit by the Children of Malice to start a war between the Empire and the Kryn so the two would battle to the death. Then with the winner of that war weakened significantly they could be easily conquered by the Drow of Lolth. She didn't really know the details of the plan or execution, or the details of the lair compound, as she was just hired muscle, with low intelligence just used for grunt work.

The party made the trip back up the mountain to the cave complex, entering the steel door to the lair the party attacked the Kobolds playing dice in the dining room, killing them all pretty quickly their exploding corpses drew the attention of two drow torturers and a kobald jailer with keys to the three slave cages, who were killed equally fast. The two kobolds in the kitchen quickly surrender and say they only want to cook, not fight.

Next the party followed a tunnel to the jail area and freed two gnomes and a human commoner who Confirmed Yirna was taken away a couple days earlier by the Drow with a Female Dwarf, presumably to the underdark. There were also two Drow from the Kryn Dynasty chained in the far cell. Rindar, the Wizard and envoy for the Bright Queen and Ishel his assistant both of whom are from Den Hythenos in Roshana.

The party took the commoners to wait in the tent at the mouth of the cave complex.Rindar and Ishel offered to help the party and accompanied them following the left fork from the recreation area. The party found Stahlmasts work room, battled with six Vox Seekers, and found notes and diagrams that indicate Stahlmast plans to set powerful explosives across the mountainside in such a way that it will bury most of Hupperdook in a landslide, and leave his mountain top lair intact. Worth 500 gp to the watchmaster in Hupperdook, the party took all thesee notes to be turned in to the watch master later. 

The party noticed the secret door leading to Stahlmasts bed chambers. Here they freed a gnome barmaid that had been chained to the bed. They searched the room and found that the armoire held five sets of fine clothing, one of which had a sending stone in its pocket. They also found a locked chest hidden beneath the bed, and was opened with thieves' tools. The chest held 170 gp, 65 sp, and two potions of healing. It also contains a letter writ­ten in Undercommon, which promises that “…more sup­port and minions will soon be sent through the tunnel.” The letter thanks Stahlmast for his soon-to-be fruitful alliance with “mistress llvara of House Mizzrym ''. (Turn­ing the letter over to Watchmaster Bram Gulchswattle earns the characters an additional reward 500 gp.)

After looting the bedroom, they attacked the Clockwork Forge, and faced Hurom Stahlmast and his mechanical suit. There were three Drow fighters and an elite Drow warrior all slayed during the battle. With Stahlmast subdued, the party claimed his goggles of night. Additionally, with one hour's work, the characters stripped 350 gp of gold and silver clockwork components from the mechanical suit. Huron and one of the Drow soldiers that survived were put in chains and temporarily held in their own jail.

Their goal for the mission met, the party explored the rest of the lair. They found a duergar blacksmith who bribes the party not to kill him or take the statue he is working on by giving them a sack of gems hidden under his bed.  While exploring a cavern used to store plundered goods from Hupperdook, they find a healing potion. Also the watchmaster will grant a 150 gp reward for return of the plundered supplies.

Next they find the infirmary where a drow female is attending the recovery of a kobold that recently had an explosive device implanted in its chest. She gently changes out the bandages and warns the party to "be quiet and not disturb the patient!" She seems more concerned with caring for the helpless kobald than fighting. She says not to go in the surgery room or it could contaminate the operation. The party burst in before the Drow "surgeon" priestess was able to implant the exploding acorn, the kobold screams in pain and passes out the two assistant drow attack. This triggers combat. The party killed all the drow in the surgery suite and had a debate about killing the helpless kobald, finally asking the caregiver drow (Her name is Sabrae, her house was destroyed so she lacked a house name) to take care of the kobolds wounds which she happily did.

Next they cleared the next room fighting three kobolds, but  the combat drew the attention of  the four kobolds that were being trained by Omalyss Nazza, a Drow Shadowblade from Menzzobrazza. The fight was wicked, and the party barely survived. They had a short rest and continued exploring finding Omalyss Nazza’s room with a commoner chained to the bed, and under the bed a chest holding 5 pp, 113 gp, 15 sp, and 10 cp, as well as a dark steel +1 shortsword (drow), and a +1 hand crossbow (drow).

Continuing on they found the Cage for the Kuo-toa with four of them asking to be freed to return to their village in the underdark. The party ignored them and moved on past the “steam room trap” and took the surviving commoners and the prisoners back to Hupperdook to get their reward from Watcmaster Bram, and get a nights rest in The Forest Inn, so they can regain their spells and hitpoints and decide what to do next. Rindar, the Wizard, Ishel, and Sabrae stayed behind to supervise the remaining Kobolds and start cleaning the place up. So far the Loot is 458 gp per character and they got promoted to 5th level.