Session 6 — Wave Echo Cave & The Forge of Spells¶
Into the cave¶
After a day's travel the party entered Wave Echo Cave and immediately noticed the sound — waves crashing, somewhere deep, every thirty seconds or so.
So that's where the name comes from. But what's causing it?
Nundro¶
The first large chamber held the body of a dwarf miner, recently dead of severe head trauma. For a moment it might have been Gundren.
It wasn't. It was Nundro, his brother, and he was beyond saving. His last gift to the party was a cloak of protection, which Krunk took up.
The waves and the crabs¶
Old mine cart tracks led onward under a ceiling low enough to restrict movement. Beside a skeleton lay a miner's journal, and it was worth every minute spent reading it:
The miner's journal
A pair of massive crab-like monsters lay ahead. They attack anything that moves past them — but they cannot stand the sound of the waves.
Time your movements and you can slip by while they're stunned.
The party spotted them ahead, standing in a murky pool. They used the waves to surprise them, took advantage of the concussion, and put them down quickly.
In the water was a strange green glowing stone. Too important-looking to leave, so it went in the bag — purpose unknown.
That was the first node.
The labor dispute¶
The next chamber held six bugbears, and a little eavesdropping revealed they were deeply unhappy with the working conditions the Black Spider was providing. Little food, no pay, and dangerous work clearing the mine of monsters.
Arthas offered them a few gold pieces to walk out of the cave and leave the party alone. Given that they hadn't seen any income lately, that was all the motivation required.
The Black Spider¶
Deeper in, the party found the chamber where the Spider was holding Gundren — at knifepoint, in the hands of one of his bodyguards.
The Spider laid out his position plainly. He knew the Forge of Spells was somewhere in this cave but hadn't found it. He also knew about the five green nodes of power that fuel it — each node enough to power a single fabrication. They were scattered throughout the cave.
Bring him the nodes, and he'd release Gundren. No questions asked.
There was much debate. The party concluded the Spider couldn't be trusted — and, separately, that they wanted the Forge's power for themselves.
They attacked decisively, Fenro sneaking in to disarm the bugbear holding Gundren hostage. When the Spider fell, he transformed into a drider, half drow and half spider, and the second form proved considerably more formidable than the first.
The party prevailed anyway.
Gundren freed — and a deal struck
The Spider was carrying a node. That made two.
The cave was still full of monsters. If the party cleared it out so Gundren could open the mine as intended, they'd take 40% of the revenue.
Gathering the nodes¶
The rock ogre¶
A neighboring passage held a massive ogre seemingly made of stone, mid-argument with some bugbears — an argument it settled by chewing up a boulder and spitting it out, turning them into paste.
Not wanting a fight, the party offered it precious gemstones from their travels. In exchange the ogre handed over a curious green gem it had pulled from the cave wall.
Third node.
The pool¶
The crashing waves grew louder as they went. Eventually they reached the source — a deep pool with a rocky shoreline that had been taking waves for a very long time.
More interesting was the green glow under the water.
Krunk went in. He came back up with the node and a giant octopus attached to him. A fierce battle followed, the party supporting from the shore, and they drove it off without burning too many resources.
Fourth node.
The fungus chamber¶
A massive chamber full of bioluminescent fungus, with a great pile of roots and leaves at the center and a curious pink flower on top.
Niko, against better judgement, ran up to pluck it.
The pile opened red eyes. Vines shot out like tentacles. Gerald sliced one off, and the severed piece stood up and joined the fight on its own — and every subsequent cut produced another combatant. Things were spiraling.
Niko made up for the original error with Burning Hands, setting every animated vine alight along with the thing that grew them.
The requisition clerk¶
Behind the next door, a spectral dwarf reviewed and wrote in an equally spectral ledger. He looked up and asked, procedurally, for their requisition form.
The party had no idea such a thing existed — but they did have one of Urmon the Architect's journals from the minotaur's lair. They forged a signature. The clerk accepted it happily.
In return he issued them safety equipment for handling the forge: a tuning fork that, when struck, calms the fires of the forge no matter how hot.
Useful, presumably, to someone trying to stop the forge. The party wanted to light it. They pocketed the fork anyway.
He also asked whether they had the vessel to hold the flame — and mentioned it was in the room across the hall.
The false coin¶
That room was empty but for an altar holding a scale, a bag of coins, and an offering dish. The note explained: ten coins in the bag, one of them false. Find the false coin, place it in the dish, and a drawer unlocks.
After some weighing and some debate, they chose a coin. It was a true one, and Arthas absorbed a bolt of lightning for the error.
Further debate produced the right answer. The drawer opened on a curious glass embossed with a fireball.
This must hold the flame. But what flame, and where?
The ghoul chef¶
Bones rattling behind the next door, along with the skittering of something large. Inside: a ghoul dressed as a chef, with a pet carrion crawler.
He announced he was preparing a feast for Urmon and Mormesk — though he wasn't cooking anything, just shuffling bones around a table, going through the motions of a life he used to have.
He needed a pink herb from the next room over to finish the dish. Bring it, and he'd hand over this green rock he'd found.
The party still had the pink flower. The trade was made happily.
Fifth node.
Mormesk¶
In one of the last unexplored rooms they found Mormesk the zombie lord — and, unexpectedly, had a long conversation with him.
What Mormesk told them
Urmon was a fellow mage working the mine hundreds of years ago, when it was still prosperous.
One day Urmon received a vision from an angel with instructions for building the Forge of Spells — a work that would grant him the power to produce magic items. He was consumed by it, and began construction both here and in the lair beneath Phandalin, diverting the mine's resources to feed the plan.
Mormesk distrusted it completely. Why would an angel offer this and ask for nothing in return?
The quarrel escalated until Mormesk decided to stop him by force. He raised an army of orcs and marched into the mine. Both sides took terrible losses. Urmon and Mormesk both died that day.
Urmon never finished his forge. Mormesk was reborn as a zombie lord with one eternal task: stop anyone from using it.
The party said they still intended to light it. They didn't believe anything bad could happen — and there would be magic items.
Mormesk said he'd stop them, and the fight began. He called a horde of zombies up from the fallen of that ancient battlefield, but Niko's Turn Undead vaporized enough of them to break the tide. Stripped of his minions, Mormesk fell.
Lighting the Forge¶
The next room held the Forge — and its keeper, a spectator, which is much like a beholder with fewer eyestalks. It was elated to see them. Its entire purpose in life was to watch someone light the forge.
The requirements: five nodes of power (they had them), a vessel to contain the flame (they had that), and the flame itself.
The flame was at the center of the cave.
The flaming skull¶
It was exactly that — a burning skull drifting through the air. The moment it noticed the party it released a fireball that did catastrophic damage.
Then Arthas remembered the tuning fork and struck it against a rock.
The skull went dim and shrank to the size of a palm. They scooped it into the jar and carried it back.
The five items¶
The spectator asked whether they were absolutely certain they were ready.
Unfazed by every warning they'd received, they lit it.
What the Forge made
- Firebow — Gerald
- The Golden Bolt — a heavy crossbow that never runs out of bolts, Fenro
- Spearbiter — a shield that bites back, Niko
- Dawn Shard — a radiant greatsword that repels undead, Arthas
- Thunderous Greatclub — capable of opening fissures in the earth, Krunk
What came after¶
A cold wind howled through the cave. Every torch went dim.
Something had happened. Nobody knew what yet.
Phandalin, corrected¶
They left the cave to find thick fog had closed the road in both directions, leaving only the path to Phandalin.
They arrived to find every building turned white. The people were pale white too. Children played without making any sound, moving in exact, robotic motions. Daran Edermath stood in his orchard picking perfectly spherical geometric apples. Glasstaff, in the town jail, sat almost catatonic, scratching unclean into his arms over and over.
Fenro tried to walk out through the fog and emerged from it at precisely the spot he'd entered.
Then fog cleared at the edge of town, and a temple appeared.
The old man at the desk¶
Inside the pearly white temple, an old man sat at a desk. He looked up at them and sighed.
"Do you have any idea what you did?!"
He introduced himself as Urmon the Architect, builder of the Forge of Spells, whose punishment for hubris is to live inside this prison for eternity.
He was placed here by Diamabel, a Lord of a Ravenloft Domain of Dread.
Diamabel's goal is to make everything pure and sterile, and to remove all decay. He wants to reach the Forgotten Realms, and he saw Urmon as a willing pawn — the Forge of Spells was always intended as the catalyst for a conduit between worlds.
Diamabel failed to finish the plan through Urmon. The party completed it for him without knowing.
But Urmon had found a possible way to undo it. Over his imprisonment he uncovered three portals, represented by three mirrors. Each leads to a pocket dimension. Each dimension holds a planar anchor, and each anchor is guarded by some strong force.
Break all three, and Diamabel is stopped from entering Phandalin and Faerûn.
Without another choice, the party agreed.
They went head first into the first mirror — and landed in a strange swamp, smothered in choking green fog.
Time to find the first planar anchor. But where do you even begin?
What changed¶
- Gundren rescued. Nundro found dead.
- The Black Spider is dead, in both his forms.
- The 40% mine deal struck with Gundren.
- The Forge of Spells was lit, and made five magic items.
- Mormesk destroyed — the last person who tried to stop them.
- Phandalin has been corrected, its people pale and precise, the roads closed by fog.
- Urmon found, imprisoned in a temple at the town's edge.
- The three-anchor quest accepted.
- New gear: cloak of protection (Krunk), the tuning fork, the flame vessel, and the five forged items.
Loose ends¶
- Three anchors, three mirrors. The party has entered the first.
- Diamabel is still coming. Nothing that happened has slowed him down.
- Glasstaff is carving unclean into his own arms. Whatever correction did to Phandalin, he can partly feel it.
- The tuning fork calms the forge's fire. It has not been used since.
- Urmon wants out of that temple, and he hasn't said what he expects in return for the map he's drawing.