Chapter 1 – The Underdark
Ever wonder the feeling of being trapped and imprisoned in the Underdark? The realm of the Drow and the place where the sun doesn't reach? No? Good. You see I was with a group of adventurers that wanted to explore the land of the Drow, but we managed to somehow get captured by a group of Illithid mind flayers. It was only within the first day or so in the Underdark that we were ambushed by a party of Illithids and we were easily beaten and imprisoned. Everything besides that was a vague memory except for my reasoning to be in the Underdark. It was because my sister was ill, it was a strange and magical illness that I couldn't even remember, except for the fact that the only cure was from a strange mushroom that grows in the Underdark. From what can I tell about the xenofauceta mushroom is that it is a small pale mushroom with glowing blue spots that when flipped the blue spots stop glowing, well at least that was what it said in my Book of Nature.
When I came to after being captured by the creatures of the Underdark, I ended up in a cell in one of the strangest places I have ever seen. It was quite subterranean and it felt very damp, the cage I was in had bones and the body of one of my fellow adventurers. I was afraid; I thought that I was going to die down here somewhere in the depths of the Underdark. Well, moments later an Illithid took me out of their cage and escorted me to what I was to believe to be their leader; a frog and a living brain. I can't remember the conversation I had with the frog but it was going to set me free on the condition of collecting a xenofauceta for it as well. If you ask, the Illithid had read my mind before I could say a word, which was how he knew about the mushroom. I agreed to do so and I was instantly teleported somewhere else within the Underdark.
Landing on my rear, I came to and found myself in a dark room. Looking around I saw that the room had several entrances and that one specific entrance had a strange person standing there with a torch. Strange might have been the wrong word, maybe crazy actually. The man stood there in full armor wielding a katana, he had a crazed look in his eye as he began yelling at me asking me who I was and how I got here. I had no idea what was going on and I told him that I was an outdoorsman, and I was just magically teleported here. I could tell he was confused and he waved me along to his group. His group was still not the strangest things I've seen, but it was quite outlandish. Apparently the man was a ronin, and in his company was a female elf monk, a female dwarf cleric of what I think was Yondola, an odd female elf with potions, a very boisterous demigod pirate, and a shifty male human rogue. The elf monk struck me as the oddest, it felt like she was there but wasn't there at the same time, way to quiet as well which probably added to the uneasiness. They had told me that they were on a journey to find fragments of a specific mask, and that all of the gods had made bets on the pirate's success or failure in Lolth's domain.
I couldn't really understand most of what was going on, but I knew I had to follow this very odd group into the Underdark. Apparently they are stuck in one of Lolth's labyrinths that lead into the Underdark, and they were still making their way to the exit. Another strange thing was that the ronin had brought his charger with him, although it didn't really look much like a normal horse anymore; with the sharpened teeth and hunger for meat. This entire adventure was strange, with us knowing that we were all being pulled by invisible wires by the gods. After exploring a lot of the labyrinth resulting in: the death of the ronin's horse, the monk actually being a vampire, and the sudden disappearances and reappearances of several party members, we actually entered a large cavern that had a stone sentinel in the center. The party, not being cautious at all, moved closer to the sentinel, forcing it to come to life. Right when the stone sentinel came to life, it felt to me that the ground began to move, as I lost sight of the way we came.
The sentinel silently began to move as everyone had prepared for battle. I posted myself by the round wall alongside the useless and almost naked dwarf cleric. The rogue, however managed to drink a potion, presumably of spiderwalk, and proceeded to walk up the wall and onto the ceiling. Combat began with the vampire monk running up to the sentinel alongside the demigod pirate and ronin. All I could do was keep pelting it with my wooden arrows, which really didn't do anything at all. But eventually the sentinel went down with relative ease, and no major injuries, besides the ronin being tossed into the wall. While we were catching our bearings and preparing for the next encounter, we began to hear the voice of Lolth mocking us.
Lolth did not like us travelling here, especially with the demigod pirate, considering that we were trying to find fragments of a supposedly magical mask in the Underdark. With what I know about the Underdark, it's a pretty terrifying place. She congratulated us for coming this far, and that was the last time we heard her voice as the walls began to shift and have spinning blades alongside them. We realized that this was an elevator as we were finally able to feel the descent of the room. Prepared for anything, I had my bow at the ready as the rest of the party got in formation. Moments later, what looked like orcs materialized out of nowhere as we engaged them.
They were either some kind of undead or reanimated creatures, every time one of us took them down; they just got back up and kept fighting. The ronin was even pinned down for a time, but luckily the rally from the pirate kept us going. What we had not known at the time, due to us being distracted by the orcs, was that there was a salamander commanding them at the center of the room. The monk refused to go anywhere near the salamander, or else it might burn her. Turning my attention to the salamander, who was now engaged with the pirate, the rogue, and the elf with potions, I loosed several arrows; two hitting him in the eye, temporarily blinding him. With the salamander blinded, the rest of the party, save for the monk, managed to down him. But to our dismay, before we had a moments rest, we were surprised with the sudden appearance of a beholder. We still had not managed to kill all of the orcs, but we also now had the trouble of a beholder as well. Surprisingly, the rogue decided to leap off the ceiling as he pulled out an odd mirror out of his pack and faced it at the beholder. What I didn't know at the time was that the mirror had the ability to trap creatures and enable the user to release their abilities at will. For a moment I had focused on the orcs until the rogue told me to shoot the beholder in the eye, knowing that I'd make him blink. Nodding, I loosed another several arrows into the beholder's eye, forcing him to blink and get sucked into the magical mirror.
Soon after the presence of the beholder was removed, the orcs dissipated into nothing. Knowing that we survived Lolth's little game, we rested and healed up as we waited for the room to stop descending. As soon as the room reached its destination, I soon blacked out.