Episode 20: When the darkness attacks

When last we left this group they were exploring the 3rd level of the mad mage's lair. They'd explored a good chunk of it but there was still a section to investigate, plus they still hadn't found the way to get to the 4th floor. Again this is a super old catch up story so some of the details won't be as crisp. As a reminder, this party consists of:

Unit 2408, the Warforged (humanoid living construct) Barbarian

Luthis, the Kenku (humanoid raven who can not fly) Blood Hunter

Dancing Wind, a Tabaxi (humanoid cat) Wizard

Elniss, a Human Cleric of Ilmater

Evangeline, the Tiefling Paladin of Tyr

As we continued exploring this area we found ourselves in an extraordinarily large cavern with what appeared to be the ruins of a village. It was also very dark. But it appears there was once a village residing here. Ruins of houses and "roads" are everywhere, laid out with signs, and what appears to be a shopping area.

Following some of the roads, someone who shall remain nameless noticed a shiny object and picked it up. Realizing it was a coin, he scanned for another one - and found it. So off we go following this trail of shiny coins. Luthis just shakes his head and Evangeline ponders if this could possibly be a trap, but no one seems to think it is.

Following the shiny coins it just keeps getting darker, but eventually find what was once the town center, complete with a fountain that is just filled with shiny coins and baubles. Yeah, Evangeline's convinced it's a trap.

It was.

Suddenly from out of nowhere the darkness starts attacking the party. And it was quite the difficult creature to hit as it melded with the darkness, essentially making it invisible. So Evangeline lit up her hammer for more light and went full tilt after it.

While her light wasn't as effective as a light it did seem to get the darkness creature's attention, and it was lit enough that other party members were able to start pounding on the darkness creature.

Unfortunately it also made Evangeline a target because it really didn't like her divine light, so she went down in the fight.

Fortunately, sort of, as the seriously injured darkness creature was flying away Dancing Wind did a last, desperate, long range attack on the creature. Successfully, thankfully, as we heard the wings stop moving and a thud.

And fortunately we do have a proper cleric, so Elniss got Evangeline back up and running. He then fussed at her for not signaling she needed help.

As the party turned to loot in the fountain though, we discovered it was full of rocks. The shiny coins that were acquired while being led here were also rocks. A few of the party started rummaging around in the fountain to see if there was anything of value to no avail.

Unit 2408 though did pull a long black sword out of the rubble and decided to keep it, even though it didn't seem in that good of shape.

After resting up a bit we continued our exploration of the 3rd floor and finally found the stairs down to the 4th. So we will resume our story there!