Day 3
In the morning two guards came, looked grim at the prisoners and dragged Jimjar outside. They threw him over the edge into the spider webs. The PCs only heard a single scream and monstrous noises. Then there was silence again. Afterwards more prison labour awaited:

Veldyn was escorted to the temple. While entering he spotted Ebert the pet boar of Vanya on a leash inside the temple. Asha asked him politely to help her translate a letter that her scouts “found” on a duergar trader. She offered him better treatment by the guards, double rations, and even offered to buy him as a personal translator in Menzoberranzan. The letter was covered in blood. Asha knew that Veldyn can help as “comprehend languages” is in his spellbook. Upon agreeing she hands Veldyn his spellbook and he starts casting/translating. Asha is called out of the temple by another drow. Veldyn doesn’t investigate the room further. When Asha came back he claimed, that he needed more time (= lie, successful deception check) and had to come back tomorrow.

Eeria was brought to the cavern floor to carry big and heavy stones from the south to the north. STR checks all the way. She succeeded all of them, further impressing the drow. In the end she found a small stone that she can use for throwing/hitting (1d2 damage).

Shoor took Thar’den and brought him in front of the barracks. There he told him, that he wants to evaluate his fighting skills, as the drow want to sell him as a fighter to a noble house. He gave him a shortsword and signalled a drow scout to attack. Thar’den knocked him out in the first round. Shoor signalling a drow warrior to attack. Thar’den picked up the second shortsword from the scout and also knocked the warrior out easy enough. Then Shoor sent in a drow elite warrior. This fight Thar’den lost and started with death saving throws, as Asha came to heal him. Asha and Shoor had a small fight in front of everybody.

Vanya was left with Sarith alone in the prison cell. After a while Jorlan came and started talking to Sarith. They seemed to fight. Jorlan eventually calling Vanya to join the conversation. He basically begged her to escape with Sarith. Sarith got Shoors key for a day. Then the two had to clean chamber pots.

In the evening everybody shared his or her loot (stones, Turvy& Topsy found more timmasks) and stories. Veldyn made fun of Sarith, Sarith cast “darkness” on him, and everybody went nuts. Thar’den attacked Sarith, but Sarith dodged it and did an unreasonable amount of damage kicking Thar’den. Everybody calmed down and Sarith argued that Jorlan only wants them to escape so he can blame Shoor and catch/kill the prisoners himself. After a lengthy discussion the PCs decided on a plan: poison the food with timmasks, forge a copy of the key, escape during the night, take silently over the guard tower and temple, and then jump into the pool of water. Now everybody, even Sarith and Ront, decided to help with the prison break. As all travel options seem evenly bad, they agreed to bring Stool back to Neverlight Grove (also following Sariths advice where to be safe from the drow).

Day 4
Vanya had to wash the dirty clothes of the drow using buckets and rope at the waterfall. She stole about 7m of silken spider rope (very thin, fits under her clothes).

Veldyn was asked to translate further. He did so, but managed to use “illusory script” on his whole spellbook, basically copying it to the back part of the book and then ripping out the original pages stealthily. He now has his spellbook in single pages stuffed into his clothes.

Asha came to the prison cell and asked who is trained in woodcutting (I imagined Eeria would be the one to answer). Thar’den stepped up, Eeria stayed silent. So Thar’den was brought to the temple as well and had to fix a minor problem on the foot of Lolths wooden statue.

Eeria had kitchen duty with Eldeth. Eldeth cast “heat metal” on a metal spoon, pressing the hot metal in the key shape, thus forming a new key. Turvy and Topsy brought additional timmasks, which Eeria put into the mushroom stew. She saw Ront on lift duty and signalled him to break the mechanism “by accident”. He did so and was beaten by the drow, but not too hard.

Back in the prison cell nobody ate his/her food. Sarith gave Jorlan the key back. They waited a few hours and then silently unlocked the prison door with the new improvised key. Eeria and Thar’den led the majority of the group stealthy into the guard tower and overwhelmed two drow (who had disadvantage on perception checks, being lightly poisoned). Veldyn and Prince Derendil waited outside to deal with the quaggoths. Veldyn cast “mold earth” to make the passage from the quaggoths quarters impassable. Everybody got their (nonmagical) equipment back, took some additional rope, bolts and waterskins from the armoury above the guard post.
The party succeeded on their second stealth check, but Eeria entered the temple loudly (failed stealth check opening the door). In it sat Asha, meditating. Eeria and Thar’den fought Asha, beheading her at the end of round two. Veldyn pillaged the tower completely, taking some damage from the chest traps, and set the quarters on fire. Eeria destroyed the wooden statue of Lolth and Prince Derendil took the polished jet stones from its eyes. He is now cursed.
Vanya knotted two ropes on a stone near the waterfall and all prisoners managed with a successful final stealth check to escape silently. They didn’t encounter the ooze anymore. While running for the southern passage Veldyn shot multiple “fire bolts” at the spider nets enflaming them.

Summary: The 4 PCs and 9 NPCs left a burning drow outpost basically unnoticed. They killed 3 drow in the process, one of them being Asha. They forged a second key, poisoned the drow, broke the lift, rendered the passage to the quaggoths quarters temporarily impassable, and succeeded all their stealth checks. They torched the temple & Ilvaras quarters as well as they inflamed the spider nets. Ilvara won't be happy when she comes back.

Day 5
During the day: The party found a small crystal cave with a narrow entry, where only the small creatures could fit through. Veldyn sent his familiar (Demetrius) to investigate and cast light to see better. Faerzness caused a wild magic effect: for the next minute Veldyn healed 5HP at the start of each turn. Sarith slapped Veldyn for being so reckless and explained the dangers of Faerzness to the party.

Day 6
During the day: Lava vent & 4 orc raiders + 1 orc Eye of Gruumsh (4x50gp gemstones)

Veldyn and Thar’den fell into the lava vent, it took them two rounds to get out. Veldyn was reduced to 0HP but healed by Vanya. The party heard the orc from far away and sent Ront to negotiate with them. They instantly attacked him and fighting ensued. Veldyn killed the Eye of Gruumsh with “burning hands” placed directly on his temples. The lava vent was harder for the party to overcome than 5 orcs.

GM notes:
Oh boy… my stupid ideas again…. Placing Ebert in the temple was not a good idea…. Eeria didn’t want to leave without him, so every escape plan had to include getting inside the temple. That made things 100% harder…. In hindsight Ebert should have been in the guard tower anyway (what does a giant boar do in a temple of Lolth?)

I tried to narrate day 3 as tarantino-esque as possible, jumping from PC-challenge to PC-challenge and linking them all together (Asha healing Thar’den, giving Veldyn time alone in the temple, Eeria hearing the sounds of fighting while carrying stones, Vanya healed Thar’den quickly while walking by). It was in my opinion interesting but needed way more preparation than normal.

For the translation by Veldyn I prepared a handwritten letter. I wrote the initial message (something about a trade caravan arriving soon in Sloobludop) in a very simple code (every second letter was random) on a piece of paper, soaked it in black tea, let it dry and put some red stains on it. Some burning with a lighter, scrambling the paper, and it looked like a pretty used piece of old parchment. I may upload a picture of it later. After all it was quite easy and a nice gadget for the players. After Veldyn cast “comprehend languages” I told the player to mark every second letter and went on to Thar’dens trial outside the temple.

Sarith casting “darkness” in the prison cell was an honest mistake, as I forgot for a moment about the no magic field…. New GM here…. Sarith had to explain that the drow made a specific anti magic field which lets drow still cast magic inside. Also I gave Sarith kind of a promotion. He told the PCs (reluctantly) that he was the lieutenant of Velkynvelve before Jorlan (and therefore before Shoor). This explains in my opinion the rivalry between all three of them a bit better.

But again…. I made the whole thing harder than it had to be…. Why did Jorlan give Sarith the key “just for 24 hours”..... this created a very long discussion on how to copy the key within the next day…. When no one knows exactly where they will be put to work tomorrow…… in the end Turvy and Topsy had an idea: They used dark gnome poop (very hard) to make 4 copies of the key shape….. these 4 poop shapes are distributed between the PCs. Additionally Sarith still has the key…. they now hope that at least one of them can forge a copy. Eldeth told the PCs she is able to cast “heat metal”….. I hardly recommend any other GM to hand out the key indefinitely…..

As the plan seemed to involve more and more stealth roles and taking over the temple I decided to let Ilvara go on a patrol with the drow elite warriors (to investigate why the supply patrol is overdue). So in case a full prison riot starts the PCs still have a chance to escape – not win the fight, but escape. I feel the 19 drow, 12 quaggoths and few giant spiders placed there in the book make it way too hard to escape regularly, especially for level 1 characters. The quaggoths in particular(right next to the prison cells) and also the drow elite warriors are hard to beat. I recommend downscaling or sending some on patrol. (even in a scenario like “demon flight” as proposed by the book the PCs would likely encounter some drow or even Ilvara – and they should sound the alarm…. I just don’t like the mental picture of drow and quaggoths all lining up on the edge of the outpost, strictly looking/firing at the demons, not seeing a single prisoner escape by jumping in the water or using the lift…. there are way too many guards to let that happen, they would run around, get ammunition, everybody would be armed and ready to fight, they would shout commands at each other etc.)

Killing off Jimjar wasn’t originally planned, but I really wanted to strengthen the picture of grim and unforgiving drow. I wanted the PCs to know that failure results in death in the underdark. I chose Jimjar because in the first days I overdid it on the betting and the players started rolling their eyes whenever Jimjar entered a conversation. I didn’t like the obsessive betting myself, but didn’t want to break character on day 4. Anyway, some of the PCs now think Jimjar was “just crazy” – which is also fitting in the overall theme of OotA. Note to myself: NPCs that want to bet are fun; NPCs who bet ALL THE TIME are annoying as hell.

I created a rating system for evaluating the price of the slaves (who knows, maybe we need it someday). Winning against the barbarian: 2k; against a drow scout: 1k; against a drow warrior: 1,5k; against a drow elite/priestess: 2k; killing an unconscious NPC: 0,5k; succeeding on various skill checks: 0,1k. So far Eeria is worth to the drow roughly 3,5k, Thar’den about 3k, Veldyn as a magic user at least 5k (and Vanya still needs to be tested)

Veldyn finding “silken underwear” in Ilvaras quarters (my bad, the book says actually “silken garments”) resulted in loud laughter during an actual tense prison break. I highly recommend describing Ilvaras quarter like a drow sex dungeon. (lots of pillows and candles, maybe some incense, wine… well and the silken "underwear" and silver framed mirror from the book). Also I changed the set up of the temple tower a bit: Shoor has no room here. He sleeps in the elite barracks. The room under the temple is Ilvaras private meditation/storage room; the third and last room in this tower is her bedroom. I don’t think a female drow priestess would actually allow an inferior male drow to live that close to her.

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