5️⃣🦋 once and for all

sessions 46-61 | 10/25/2022 - 02/12/2023 | summaries in a 100 words or less!

✨synopsis

The party readies themselves to take Wave Echo Cave and set off in a hurry after Nezznar kidnaps Droop and Pip.

After a fierce battle, we witness Nezznar turned into a drider by Lolth and subdue him. Deciding to bring him to Waterdeep for interrogation, we rescue Nezznar's prisoners and return to Phandalin victorious!

Upon returning, we save Phandalin from an orc raid, then tie up loose ends while Soren savors his newfound freedom with great relish. Amidst the cheers of grateful townsfolk, we depart for Waterdeep, leaving Phandalin behind us once more and opening the chapter to our next adventure.

💕46. domination

The group travels back to Phandalin, encountering more strange Underdark creatures out of their habitat and acting in crazed ways. They dispatch a group of slaver kuo toa who try to capture the group to meet their deity, the "Mooggoon".

Soren and Will speak about mushrooms and trauma. As we approach Phandalin, we are once again struck by unfortunate events: Nezznar, the Spider, contacts Soren through Sending furiously due to his lack of communication; Soren accidentally outs that he was compromised and puts Will in danger.

In the ensuing chaos, we return to Stonehill, where a grieving Gundren punches Soren.

🐜47. the spider and the ant

The group placates Gundren and learn Garaele is out of town. Soren meets his master's familiar, and is almost killed--before he tells Nezznar about Will's presence; the drow is intrigued to "examine" an aasimar.

Mentions of past flames cause Soren to visit Vyerith in jail to learn more, but gets attacked by a Redbrand prisoner. Soren reacts violently, traumatizing the prisoner, much to the group's horror. They teach Soren about the moral responsibility of having power. Soren is deeply apologetic upon seeing the start of parallels between himself and Nezznar.

The group visits Pax and purchase various items from her.

🔍48. mirror, mirror

The group buys ranged weapons to cover our martials' weaknesses; Soren reports to the Zhents and learns they have their eye on the Forge. We find Pip and our pets in good health and promise to dine with the child before our departure tomorrow for Wave Echo.

We view Nezznar's past through Soren's new mirror and find uncomfortable evidence that Nezznar was not always cruel, but was made so by the vicious drow societal upbringing; that Nezznar is a victim in a grand cycle of hatred.

As we go to sleep, Sildar gives Soren a promise ring, which touches Soren.

🌄49. wave echo cave

We are woken by a frantic Toblen: Pip and Droop have been kidnapped by bugbears, leading to a mad scramble to get to Wave Echo.

Soren believes he wants to torture Nezznar for revenge; the group refuses to let him, causing a moral blowout and uncomfortable tensions between the party before their final fight of the campaign together.

We reach the cave and traverse its natural terrors (including oozes and minecart mazes) before massacring Nezznar's forces of bugbears and retrieving Droop. We learn that Pip is being held hostage, and briefly rest before moving to, finally, confront the Black Spider.

🕷️ 50. spoiler: we win.

Soren seems to betray the party--long enough to wrench Pip away from Nezznar, before standing by the party again in the final fight.

The battle is arduous, and both sides suffer heavy casualties. As Nezznar is forced into a corner, he summons a Yochlol demon which promptly turns him into a drider and leaves. We defeat drider!Nezznar and restrain him.

Soren receives some time alone with his former master but cannot bring himself to torture someone, and instead treats Nezznar's wounds as the drider struggles to come to terms with his new form.

👖51. juicy ass drider pants

Nezznar continues to question Soren's kindness; Soren maintains he doesn't want to witness suffering. Shortly before sleeping, group decides to find the Forge before turning Nezznar in to the Lord's Alliance for questioning.

Will tries to better understand the cruel drow, Nezznar taunts Sildar about Soren's past intimacies with humans (and how they all ended up), Hugh tries to make him "drider spider pants with JUICY on the ass", and Soren tries to question Nezznar under the pretense of torture--overall rather effectively.

The group begins to explore the rest of the cave in search of the Forge.

👁‍🗨52. the spellforge

After killing a Flameskull and clearing the mines of some ogre zombies, the group finds the Forge guarded by a delusional Spectator, whom they convince to return home through lies.

We experiment with the powers of the Forge and learn that it's badly damaged and a far cry from its past potential. Still, we strip the place of their magic items and enhance our own with the lingering powers of the Forge.

We learn a bit about Soren's honeypotting past, Hugh meets his match in poisonous mushrooms, and we fight a shrivelled old wraith who touches Soren in mean ways. :(

🫀53. a coward's choice

Fearing mistreatment, Nezznar helps the group with the flameskull in exchange for food, though the group is clear that they would not starve him.

Later, he bribes Soren into revealing Will’s history with drow by holding info about Soren’s brother, Nadhiir, above his head. Soren learns that his enslavement only benefited Amalka, who disposed of every male of the family.

When Nezznar uses this knowledge to torment Will, Soren threatens and strikes Nezznar for the first time. The group defeats a room full of ghouls and settles to rest. Soren is apologetic for his actions, but Will is understandably and thoroughly upset.

🍰54. birthdays

The party fights off a giant skeleton monstrosity, and swarms of stirges, before finally finding their way out of Wave Echo Cave.

After some taunting, Nezznar freely offers information that Dresnan, Soren’s father, escaped before his execution, before implying that this is not the first of Soren’s many birthday gifts, shocking Soren.

The group exchanges birthdays, and promises to celebrate Soren’s for the first time in his life. We return Pip safely, regroup with Droop at Garaele’s, and use the diamond from the cave to finally revive Tharden Rockseeker, who had been killed by Nezznar days ago.

💰55. shopping therapy

The party gets their loot appraised and come into a good sum of money from ancient dwarven historical artifacts.

We shop at Pax’s for more gear. Nezznar runs his mouth at Pax, causing her to charm him and force him to embarrass himself. Nezznar comes out of the charm terrified, to the party’s surprised discomfort.

The party returns to Stonehill and begin prepping for dinner while Hugh gets Droop back on his feet. Nezznar remains shaken and sullen as Will and Soren attempt to offer him some comfort. Upon receiving Nezznar’s word that he would behave, Soren unties him.

🥩56. heroes' feast

After discussing future plans, the party frees the doppelgangers as promised and invite them to dinner. We learn a little about Will's past. Soren blackmails Nezznar into helping with meal prep and learns about Nezznar's (uncomfortably-relatable) intentions with the Spellforge.

With the help of the party, Soren dramatically proposes to Sildar, asking that they spend the rest of their days together. Sildar happily accepts.

We enjoy the ensuing large feast before Hugh goes home with Garaele. We spend an uneventful night taking turns watching Nezznar before a warband of orcs launch a raid on Phandalin at the crack of dawn.

⚔️57. divide and conquer

As Phandalin comes under attack, the party splits up to protect the townsfolk and prevent the orcs from devastating the town.

Hugh, Droop and Sildar use their brute force to make short work of the invading orcs. Will utilizes his range and mobility to kite the orcs, while Soren uses his charisma to guide townsfolk to safety, before using darkness to defeat the attackers.

With the party's help and Garaele's healing, there are no casualties (except Harbin Wester's house, oh no 🙄) and the party reconvenes to battle the apparent commanders and orchestrators of the orc raid.

💓58. wrath.

In the ensuing fight against the orc commanders, Soren positions poorly and is almost killed, though the rest of the party manage to barely keep him alive and kill the commanders, obtaining some interesting weaponry and loot.

We are thanked for our protection of the town before we head off to Conyberry to complete the task of finding and questioning an elusive banshee, Agatha, on behalf of Garaele.

Along the way, Myco communicates with Hugh. We learn that it is not only permanently awake now, but also slowly devouring Hugh's brain, lending new urgency to our quest of killing it.

🌱59. watch it grow

We reach Conyberry and after much searching, find Agatha, who is disillusioned by human greed and violence. Will offers to plant her some seedlings instead, and his innocence touches her.

She offers us four questions; we learn that Myco cannot be easily expelled, that Will's mother is alive and "dealing with demon uprisings", and Soren learns information about the missing people from the drow raid on Will's village.

We set up camp and fish; Will endures an uncomfortable night watching over Nezznar, who is cruel and taunts him. Soren shares a surprisingly vulnerable, albeit short-lived, moment with Nezznar.

🧟‍♀️60. plants n' zombies

We negotiate with a necromancer from Thay to share his Netherese excavation site with others, completing the task Edermath gave us.

We also locate the orc hideout in Wyvern Tor, clearing out the last few remaining orcs, officially completing all of our quests from the Phandalin townsfolk.

Nezznar continues to taunt Will throughout their night watches, calling him a coward and the surfacers weak. These unpleasantries extend to Soren, who learns that Nezznar intends to escape and keep Soren around as a slave while he regains his house and power.

🧶61. loose ends

The party reports our quest progress to the respective townsfolk, before saying our goodbyes to the townsfolk, with whom we've grown close.

We tie up loose ends by putting the Nothic out of its misery, and killing Nezznar's spider familiar in the woods (which Nezznar no longer has control over). We instruct Gundren to use our share (minus Will's) of the Spellforge's profits to fix Tresendar Manor.

We depart Phandalin and head towards Waterdeep, where we intend to turn Nezznar in for interrogation. Along the way, we are attacked by strange scarecrow constructs, which heavily damage the party.