The Copper Piece Gang

D&D Session Summary

This session began with a recap of the party’s investigation into disappearances near Timber Grove Hollow. Elara had hired the group to look into missing loggers, trappers, livestock, and travelers. The party followed the trail from the logging site into the woods, fought a group of bandits, and discovered those bandits were not the main threat. After that, they found an unconscious dwarf bound in sticky silver strands and suffering from poison. He explained that a strange fog and patches of unnatural darkness had rolled in when his group was attacked and captured.

Following that lead, the party pushed deeper into the forest through a skill challenge, then ran into more enemies including a glowing spider and several drow. One drow finally surrendered and gave up useful information. He revealed that prisoners were being taken below to work for his mistress while she completed a ritual. The party got directions to the ritual site, but then Luke killed the surrendered drow after the interrogation. That act caused Luke to lose his healing powers and put him in direct trouble with his god, which became the first major issue of this session.

After a short rest, the party followed the captors underground. The environment changed dramatically as they descended. This was not just a cave. The group moved into a scarred underground battlefield shaped by some ancient cataclysm involving titanic beings. Huge pieces of armor and weaponry were embedded in the earth, and the hilt of an enormous sword stood out from the ruined landscape. The area radiated the feeling of old, world-shaking violence, and the party recognized it as exactly the kind of place where rituals, planar breaches, and dangerous magic might gather.

As they approached the next chamber, the DM framed the scene before combat fully began. Ahead lay a vast area lit by magma glow and intense underground heat. A tall, strange, frail-looking humanoid figure stood on a cracked pedestal in a kind of trance, seemingly accompanied by an unknown magical creature. Around her were many others, drow and spiders moving through the chamber and working near the entrance. The room clearly looked like the center of the enemy operation and the likely site of the ritual.

Before charging in, the party had to deal with Luke’s crisis of faith. Luke admitted he should not have executed the helpless drow, even if the drow was evil. The others pushed him to repent rather than shrug it off. He prayed for forgiveness, and his god answered, but not with a clean reset. Luke’s powers returned only provisionally. He was told, in effect, that he would face a test later and would need to prove himself through action. Until then, he was on probation with his deity, which added a looming moral thread to everything that followed.

Once that was settled, the group discussed how to move through the underground tunnels without walking blindly into disaster. One character took point checking for traps. Another used ranger-style survival knowledge to gather dust and debris that would reduce armor shine and help the whole party stay less visible. The druid remained in spider form and tried to blend in naturally as they moved deeper. It was a cautious, methodical setup, and that caution paid off quickly when the lead scout found a cleverly designed snare-and-rockfall trap. Better yet, the trap was disarmed cleanly, and the scout held onto the parts in case they might be useful later.

The tunnel itself was rough and awkward, with climbing, narrow passages, and clear signs that prisoners had been dragged through it. Torn bits of clothing, blood, and scrape marks on stone confirmed that people had been hauled this way by force. The deeper the party went, the more the place felt like it was trying to kill them even before the drow got a chance.

That became literal when the party reached a steep section. Several members had to make athletics checks to get over it, and one character failed hard enough to slip and begin sliding down a dangerous side slope. To make matters worse, that same character was carrying the light source, so the whole situation threatened to leave the group in darkness while he vanished deeper into the cavern. What followed was one of the session’s best chaotic teamwork moments.

First, another character realized that a strange shimmering cloth recovered earlier could be unraveled into a single, incredibly strong thread. Then Rae used that thread with an arrow shot to create an improvised lifeline. The rescue was not exactly gentle. The falling character got shot and bloodied in the process, but the plan worked. The rope caught, the slide stopped, and the group hauled him back up before he disappeared into the dark or dropped farther into the cavern.

By the end of the session, the party had not launched the big fight in the ritual chamber yet, but the stage was fully set. They had repaired Luke’s divine connection enough to keep going, navigated the dangerous underground approach, avoided traps, survived a near-disaster on the climb, and reached the threshold of the enemy stronghold. The next step was obvious: enter the chamber full of drow, spiders, ritual energy, and ancient battlefield magic, and try not to die horribly.

Quick Recap

• The session opened with a recap of the Timber Grove Hollow investigation, the captured dwarves, and the drow ritual below.
• Luke had killed a surrendered drow in the previous session and lost his healing powers as punishment.
• The party descended underground into an ancient battlefield scarred by titanic combat and old magical violence.
• They discovered a huge ritual chamber ahead with magma light, drow, spiders, and a strange central figure on a pedestal.
• Before advancing, Luke prayed for forgiveness and got his powers back only on a probationary basis.
• The group moved cautiously, using stealth prep, spider scouting, and trap-checking to approach the chamber.
• They found and disarmed a clever snare-and-rockfall trap in the tunnel.
• The underground route showed clear evidence that prisoners had been dragged deeper into the complex.
• A failed climb sent one party member sliding into danger while carrying the group’s light source.
• The party improvised a rescue using strong thread from earlier loot and an arrow-shot lifeline.
• The session ended with the group battered but intact, poised just outside the main drow ritual chamber.