Episode 49 - The Rapids

Previously on All Drow, All the Time

The party entered a stretch of tunnel opening into a cavern steeped in an earthy, vegetal musk—rot layered with heavy fungal overtones. Specks of bioluminescent light drifted through the air like slow‑moving fireflies.

The Underdim revealed a vast fungal forest stretching beneath the world.

Pressing on, the party reached a churning river. Two heavy, fibrous boats rested on the shore, each fitted with an oversized rudder. A bridge led to a web‑choked island that the group quickly scouted before boarding the boats—Scomitch and Nick Beardless in one, Ary, Ahl d’Kukyz, and Wynter in the other, with Wynter and Nick taking the rudders.

Nick’s boat drifted past a mound in the river. Four water spiders erupted from their submerged nest, but the duergar’s imposing presence—paired with Scomitch’s fear spell—sent them scrambling back underground.

Moments later, Nick clipped a half‑submerged log. A tunnel spider burst from its hiding place, only to be neutralized by Scomitch’s rarely known spell, Sylune’s Viper. Nick with boot and axe freed the boat, and the pair pushed onward.

Across the river, Wynter’s boat passed another spider den. Four more water spiders surged out, only to be shredded by Ahl d’Kukyz’s Spirit Guardians. A fast current threatened to slam the boat into the far bank, but Wynter—buoyed by bardic inspiration—guided the craft cleanly through.

Nick’s boat hit the rapids next. Despite his best efforts, he crashed into the opposite shore, triggering yet another tunnel spider ambush. Sylune’s Viper struck again, incapacitating the creature long enough for Ary—balanced on the boat’s slick edges—to pepper the spider with arrows and finish the job.

Likely muttering dwarven curses about having to do everything himself, Nick freed the boat once more and rejoined the main current.

As the two boats finally converged downstream, Scomitch sent Paul Stanley skittering into yet another spider den. The familiar scene of half a dozen water spiders clustered below.

A moment later, a fireball roared down the hole. The explosion vaporized half the nest outright and blasted the remaining spiders upward in a panicked spray of legs and chitin. They barely breached the surface before the party cut them down.

Only then did everyone notice the river’s current seize the spider corpses and sweep them forward. The bodies spun and tumbled ahead of the boats, carried straight toward the massive waterfall looming in the distance.

Ahead, the river thundered into a massive waterfall, pulling both boats toward a fatal drop. The crafts might survive the plunge; the party would not.

Wynter, fully water‑strong at being able to change into a water elemental, steered her boat effortlessly into a landing just before the fall. Nick, being a duergar and not being water-strong, struggled with the rudder and was about to miss the landing entirely—until Scomitch, as to his birth namesake had to do everything, stepped in and muscled the boat toward safety.

Disembarking, the party found worn stone steps hidden beneath the shallow water, leading down to the fungal forest floor. With the waterfall behind them and the Underdim ahead, the group now faces their next choice: how to navigate the sprawling fungi wilderness that awaits.