Episode 50 - The Roper

Entering the vast Fungi Forest, the party skirted the Kombucha pond and, lacking a reliable route toward Holoth, followed a trail of crushed vegetation, flattened by countless creatures moving through the area.

A hut woven from fibrous strands stood ahead. Deciding to bypass looking for a hot dog in this bush, the party moved past it when a shrieker erupted in a deafening wail.

An albino Svirfneblin named Grumbles stepped out of the structure. While talking with the gnome, the heroes learned he brewed a foul mixture that kept a massive beast named Grumpy confined to the forest's northern reaches. When asked, he didn’t know the way to Holoth, having never been there, but he offered directions to a recent drow patrol if the party helped him obtain special fungus, slimes, and molds found in a nearby cave complex.

Grumbles warned that a roper had moved into the cavern, preventing him from passing. He offered 500 gold for the party to retrieve the ingredients, then mentioned that he had sent a duergar expedition a week earlier that never returned. If the party located them and they were dead, they could keep whatever they found.

Accepting the task, the adventurers followed the path toward the cavern and spotted duergar tracks.

About to round a bend near the entrance, they heard wet tearing and a deep, resonant growl. Using Star Child to scout ahead, they found a Tyrannosaurus Rex devouring a recently killed triceratops.

Curbing Nick Beardless’s enthusiasm to charge in, Scomitch teleported Ary to a ledge above the cave. Ary launched arrows at the T-Rex. Once the creature noticed them, it charged the ranger. Using the rope trick spell, Ary popped in and out of the dimensional doorway while urging the others to reach the cavern’s entrance.

Stung repeatedly by Ary’s arrows, the Tyrannosaurus moved away, clawing at the barbs embedded in its body with its tiny arms.

Inside the cold, dark cave, the group moved south and spotted glowing slime beside a duergar corpse skewered on a stalactite. Scomitch retrieved the substance with mage hand. As the party approached the body, the stalactite rotated, and an eye popped open, revealing a piercer. More of the creatures dropped, narrowly missing Ary and Wynter but impaling Ahl d’Kukyz’s foot.

Nick Beardless charged past the piercer ambusher and headed east, only to come across a massive roper dragging another duergar corpse toward its maw.

The battle was now fully joined!