D&D Blast of Acid to chilling cold

This last session was one where I got to share a lot about the world and about dragons, so for me it was exciting.  

The session began where it had left off, deep in the elemental prison of Earth in the lair of the Medusa that had fought the characters.  The characters decided that a long rest was in good order for everyone and since the area was defensible with only one approach the characters decided to pitch their invulnerable dome in that entrance.  They rested.  

When the resting was complete the adventurers decided to head off and explore more using the exploration pattern, left, left, left, left . . ..  Their scout the Ranger Korin went ahead and returned to report that e passage they were following was a long one.  They decided to continue.  Soon he came back to report that it ended in a cavern with some figures playing in the shadows of the gloom.  When they all gathered at the entrance they saw that the dust was less in this area and that the figures were Earth Elementals, one was the same size as the ones they had fought in the Temple of Earth and of the other two, one was larger and one was smaller.  They were playing a game using a round boulder and kicking it at one of three targets that was guarded by one of the other Elementals.  They decided to try to walk by the man shaped lumps of stone.  As they approached, the larger one stopped and said something that sounded vaguely like pebbles falling on a rock from height.  The middle sized one stopped too, but the little one kicked the boulder into one of the targets gaining a point against one of its fellows, before joining the others.  

The largest held his hand forward and spoke with words that sounded like two large stones grinding together.  In his hand it had seven valuable gems.  The Elementals were blocking the access to the rest of the cavern.  The Warlock cast a spell to Comprehend his language.  The Elemental repeated, "Free passage for a good gem, one per body".  The party conferred and they offered the Elementals 7 gems, 100 gp value apiece.  The ones in the Elemental's hands were valued at 1000 gp.  The the Elementals seemed to know the difference and held out for more.  The players offered them copper and the Elementals responded, "Metals not good, Gems good!". The players mimed that they had no more to give them and the Elementals gestured, "Fine, one time pass, no more." and they widened their stance and shifted to allow the characters freedom to pass.  "Where were we?" in a voice like gravel ground under foot.  The little one piped up in a voice like crystal snapping in a vice grip, 3-4-1, Garnet in possession."  "No, no, 2-4-1, you took unfair advantage after I called a time out…".

The party moved passed them.  In the extreme end of the cavern there was a cold breeze in the air and the dust left the area entirely.  There was a magic circle inscribed on the ground, in the shape of a circle.  It was like the triangular symbol that sent them to this prison in every way except its shape.  The wind emitting from the area suggested that it was leading to the Air Prison.   At this point the characters began talking amongst themselves about the nature of their prison and where it could be located.  The properties of the prison were very much like where they came from but different.  The Warlock expressed one of the leading theories of the common people from e streets of Jarda near the Bardic College, that pure elemental planes existed and came together to create the world around them in different quantities in different areas, while the Gnome countered with some scientific knowledge that he read in a book once that Elementals came from pure examples of their element found in the world and were an expression of the natural intelligence of the world.  The Dwarf said at she had heard a mixture of the two versions, that dwarves were created in the same way that Earth Elementals were but that was countless generations ago on a different plane of reality.  But that miners often encountered Earth Elementals in homogeneous rock groups deep underground.  The Druid said that she thought that Elementals felt natural and part of nature to the extent that she had heard rumours that some of her Order could assume the form of Elementals when they were more powerful and that since she couldn't shape change into anything but natural beasts, that made her feel the Gnome might actually be correct, for once.  

The Warlock then stated that he did not want to head off to the Air prison right away, as there was some unfinished business he felt they had to do here.  He told them that he was looking for a gem of power, a magical gem for the Golden Orb of Death.  He felt strongly that there was one located in each of the Elemental prisons and he really did not want to come back here again.  The others were noncommittal about his feelings, but they agreed that if he asked the Elementals playing that game at the entrance to the cavern about the gems of power and they did not know anything about them, they should all go to the Air Prison and be free of this toxic air.  The Warlock reluctantly agreed.  But then asked how they were going to speak to the Elementals?  The party looked at him and told him that was his problem and started heading to the portal.  Phil stopped and said, I have a spell that could bridge the language gulf between races . . ..  It was decided that it would be cast on Vistra, as she was considered the most trustworthy of the party members, but also the most likely to survive a direct assault by the Elementals if they are insulted.  Vistra privately thought this was the real reason.  

The spell cast, Vistra approached the game playing Elementals.  "3-5-8, take that Spinal!, I Jet will win with one more point!  Stop.  The flesh bags approach."  Vistra asked the Elementals about magical gems and the Elementals said they knew of nothing like that.  Vistra turned to leave, but Cal, asked if the Elementals knew who had most of the gems around here.  The Elementals knew that, they said that the the Overlord and two fleshy serpents had most of the gems around here.  Do you know where they are?  The Elementals point to the North, to the North East and the South East.  Which is the biggest Fleshy Serpent and could you lead us to its lair?  The Elementals said they could, but they wanted half of all the gems if they were going to fight the Fleshy serpent.  The party considered it and asked if they would fight the fleshy serpent with them, and they said no, we will only lead you there.  So the party said then we will only give you a fourth part of the gems.  The lead Elemental Jet countered quickly three parts of ten, but we get first choice, final offer.  The party agreed.  The Elementals led the way directly heading through the rock wall.  After a few minutes the Elementals returned.  Vistra then said, please lead us through the airy passages, we can not walk through rock.  The Elementals laughed like an avalanche and struck out again leading them along a path they could follow.

Along the way, jet chatted occasionally with Vistra, saying they did not believe that flesh bags were intelligent and thought they were mewling animals.  It said that the Flesh serpent was strong and had six elemental allies.  He gestured to a cave and said they are in here and they walked into the nearest wall and extended a limb to point the way.

The party elected to tell Korin to scout out the lair of the dragon to see what he could see.  Korin came back after a few minutes.  He said the page age split into two entrances, one about thirty feet across and another that was a little more than a crack that one person could slowly squeeze through with care.  The cavern beyond was well lit, with plumes of fire jetting up from unseen gasses regularly on the wall and from fissures in the ground.  There was a pool at the back of the cave that was relatively in the dark with only a few gas flames lighting the pool.  He recalled that the cave was smooth as if the wals were melted and they entire area smelled of strong vinegar.  There were pools of water littered all over the place and there was no dust in the air anywhere.  He could not see the Fleshy Serpent, but there were six badger like Elementals playing or fighting in the area before the pool.

They asked if Korin wanted to start the battle by killing as many of the elemental creatures as he could.  A little sparkle glinted in his eye at the suggestion, suggesting that someone would need to have a little talk with him at a later time, and he was off.  The party crept slowly up the larger path.  As they neared ready they signaled Korin and he drew back his hand a loosed three arrows in quick succession, killing two outright and maiming another. Then without pause he drew back two more arrows and struck down a third and wounded a second.  Not to be left out the Gnome mounted on his celestial giant mountain goat, charged into the room.  The pseudo-Elementals dived into the earth to protect themselves from the deadly attacks that had killed half their number, perhaps also to flee the clatter of the suicidal Gnome.  The rest of the party approached the future battle field with trepidation slowly.  The gnome continued his mad rush until he reached the water's edge, hoping that if there was a 'fleshy serpent' it would reveal itself.  The tactic worked flawlessly.  At that very  moment the image of the paladin astride his goat, with both of their flesh sloughing off into a pool of acid made sense to the Warlock, and he told the Paladin to raise his shield!  Without second guessing his allies odd foreboding command, he did so, and the stream of acid that splashed off his shield at point blank, his mount stepped to the side as the slew of flesh melting liquid drained off his shield.  The real foe now on the battle field and most of the companions far away, the Cal called for those that could see him to rally to their foolhardy paladin's defense and to Charge!

Inspired they ran as fast as they could to reach him before the beast could dismember Moolite, once and for all.  The paladin with noble intentions made a rude gesture towards the dragon and turned tail, hoping to lead it to his fellows.  The dragon not taken by his bravado, shrugged off the challenge to duel him personally but instead grabbed hold of a short sword in his scaly talon and grabbed a potion of the the same shelf of the cave and drank it down in one second, then turned towards the creatures that would dare threaten it in its lair.

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I have always been a big fan of equipping monsters with their own treasure.  How often have adventurers defeated a monster and found that it had a ring of regeneration in the hoard?  To many times, if the creature is intelligent, I treat the monster as if it had a brain.  So, when threatened, the dragon grabbed two magic items, a Defender short sword and a potion of Speed and used them.  The armour class of the dragon rose from 17 to 22 and the dragon could move twice and make two bite attacks and two claw attacks or breathe acid and make a bite and two claw attacks, except this time one of the claws would be with a sword and cause less damage, but still.

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Cal seing the Dragon do something strange pulled his Wad of Paralyzation out and tried to paralyze the dragon.  The dragon failed its saving throw and was paralyzed.  Io fired her Wand of a Wonder and the dragon fell down a 10' pit, but as it was in the water, it suffered no damage.  Vistra, seeing the strange behaviour in the mister decided that there was no alternative, but to invoke her Blessing of the Hidden goddess and she charged into battle with the weight of a glorious Dwarven warrior, that was hasted.  She charged forward at twice her movement, and lashed out at the scaly beast, the normal flurry of attacks were at advantage to hit, because it was paralyzed and her damage was all critical, because she could line up each stroke to cause maximum effect.  She struck the dragon three times, paused and with a surge attacked another two times dealing a whopping 110 points of damage.  The dragon's head landed ten feet further back than its body and sank into the pool.  The Elementals emerged from the wall I time to look at the amassed treasure, they selected three of the gems as their due and told them to keep the rest.  The total value of the gems selected was 7000 gp, the initial asking price for free travel to the air portal and so, they reasoned they had earned that price as well.  The other treasure included a lot of gems and the sword and a potion of healing.  Also was the Water Gem of power, which the Warlock placed into the crown of the Skull artifact.  They decided that they would travel to the Prison of Air and see what was there.

When they arrived they were on a pinnacle in the center of an airy prison.  The walls were tall and ended in sky with an odd blue and green moon in the sky along with the Suns of home.  The prison was shaped like an oval about a mile deep and half as much wide.  The plain below was scattered with snow squalls and blowing winds, there were eddies flowing through the winds stirring the snow on the ground.  The path was treacherous heading down to the plain and there were slips and falls, but they managed to reach the bottom without incident.  When they gathered themselves to make thier way to one of the cave mouths they saw from up high they noticed eight men rise up from behind folds in the terrain.  They were dressed in piecemeal armour and fur covered hides.  The men looked hard as if they had passed through hell and were gaunt from a few missed meals.  The lean muscles on their forearm was steady as they drew their bows, one called out, your equipment or your life.

Cal retorted, your equipment or your lives, we just defeated a dragon, your call.  Then he suggested, but I rather we just be allies instead.  The Bandit leader Gank shouted out, we already have and ally, and we don't need you.  At that moment the wind shifted and the snow was instead driven toward them from behind and a large icy white serpent rose up towering over them but far enough away that the battle would be far from certain.  

"I will bargain with you," it said, "you look like you are strong and are better able than my current allies.  You can kill them if you can, but let me make common cause with you.  You will find my desires are simple and my aid great". All of this was in accented Jardanese.  Anxious to extend the stand off and to put off  combat from two sides, Cal asked, what it wanted?  The beast, hovered off the ground, and glanced over its shoulder and said, I desire freedom and I want to evolve.  The desires of the dragon seemed odd.  "Why don't you just fly way from this prison?". To which it replied, there is a ceiling and moreover this place is not where my kind live, there would be no evolving out there.  What is Evolving?  I grow when I eat my kind.  I have not grown in over a century, I desire it much, all of our kind do, and this prison is barren of our kind, so I recognize that I need freedom, for that I will aid you the best I can.  Korin asked if we free you where will you go?  To where it is cold and far from you.  Then why not stay here, it is cold here.  Yes it is cold but I can't evolve here, take me with you and let me eat the others to evolve.  Did you hatch here from an egg?  I saw no egg, I gained sentience here a century ago and fought for dominance and evolved as far as I could go.  The others, are they a mated pair?  Mated? We do not mate like you animals, we are Dragonkind we grow powerful be eating each-other's essence, it has been a long time since I could evolve and the others are stronger than me and they each want eat me so that they might get an edge and eat the other.  Let me aid you, let me evolve and I'll help you find freedom.  What says that you won't betray us when you get what you want?  What says that you won't betray me too, I know, I will swear and oath to your goddess Scoria and pray she strikes me down if I betray the oath, will that satisfy you?  Enough, we will talk in the morning, you may rest with my minions, or you can eat them if you wish, but either way let's meet and destroy our enemies and gather your magic gems and free ourselves from this place.  Shall we?

D&D: Between Hammer and Anvil

The adventure continued a week after the last because there was a conflict with our schedules.  Two players could not make it, but one was the one that had not come to half of the games.  The other was Natural20.  The last adventure they rescued a paladin that had been kidnapped fifty years previously and was the old heir to the Duke of Greysteel, the eldest sister of the current Duke.  She had been attacked along with her fathers mother and siblings, except for her youngest brother.  Discovering hidden knowledge granted the Blessing of the Hidden Goddess, every character was granted a single spell use of any spell from a higher level than they could cast.

As it stood the characters entered into the third level, thinking that most of that level had been explored, but they still had not found a way down to the fourth level.  They decided to explore the way past that they had been skirting around.   They headed into the area with a number of statues and they found a few magical items.  They were suspicious and handled them with care but but with a lot less care than a group of experienced adventurers that discovered magical items lying around in an active dungeon.  Seriously, I would not trust any of them, but they picked out the whole lot and discovered a few traps, but still they grabbed a bunch of cursed items.  Seriously.  

Next they headed into a room with a Lamia that looked like a beautiful woman.  I have learned that none of the players know true beauty, like Laetia Casta, Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford, three super models of the nineties.  Elle MacPherson, Heidi Klum, nope, but Katie Perry yes!?!  So to address how good a being is, I have to say she looks as good or better than Katie Perry.  The Lamia was using an illusion to disguise he lioness torso.  She charmed the Paladin to help her, but the rest of the party wanted to kill her, so it was mildly amusing.  They passed through the room and discovered a path to a set of stairs that lead down to the fourth level.  They knew that they had beaten everyone that they had faced, so they were confident and they charged down the stairs.

Meanwhile, the Main temple was on high alert.  They had scribed the characters and over the past three days they recorded three incursions into the third level.  They were mounting up an attack to hope to crush the characters, but they were thinking that the last ambush was a failure so they were worriedly waiting their fate… until providence came knocking on their door.  The High Priest of the Air temple just reported in.  After his alliance with the party that defeated his rivals, the Fire Temple and the Water Temple, he left the temple with a few of the survivors.  He had successfully manipulated the party to destroy the temples and e High Priests, but leave the guards in the south undamaged.  Two trolls with a troll chieftain, that the two temples were treating with.  Kelno presented himself as a wily leader who killed off his rivals by making a temporary alliance with a stronger group.  The trolls sided with him and the Troll Chieftain joined up.  Kelno arrived in the temple and all was forgiven; betrayal is never justifiable unless if it brings overwhelming advantage.  

The Party moved into the lower temple and they discovered vile mosaics and a broad hallway.  There was a forgotten scrap of paper in the foyer and it depicted an odd eight armed skull.  They cautiously headed down the hallway and encountered a broad stair case that descended another twenty feet, the mosaic stopped for ten feet and then continued again at a second.  They stopped to examine the stonework and the dwarf said that the stone was new, conjured stone.  There was no other path left but to continue.  They descended the second twenty foot stair and sent the ranger on ahead, invisible in darkness but in light he used his Elven cloak and Elven boots and Necklace of Proof Against Detection to great effect.  At the end of the corridor he found the Greater Temple.  The broad area was well lit at the floor level, but the ceiling vaulted above the floor by sixty feet and the roof glittered like the night sky, complete with constellations.  There were eight hallways leading from the main chamber, four on the west and four on the east sides.  The first was brown in colour, grey was the second, red then green.  Along the wall were twelve flying buttresses and a gargoyle sitting at the top of each, watching the floor below. There was a central dais that lead to the alter proper, but it was obscured by a Adamatine structure; a fortress of magical origin set up with bugbear archers, human wizards and clerics.  The alcoves to either side held giants, two hill giants and two trolls in each of the two alcoves.  There were ogres too.  The monsters appeared to be waiting for the party and they were ready to attack.  The ranger dutifully returned to the party to report this.  The party remembered how a single Hill Giant had nearly wrecked the party; the prospect of facing four at once, along with the entire might of the temple daunted them and they decided to leave the temple.  They retreated.  When they had cleared the second flight of stairs they came to a halt, they heard noise from the stairway from the third level.

Kelno had treated with the Troll Chieftain and agreed to journey to Troll encampment.  It was a five day journey through the woods then swamp.  When he arrived he gifted the trolls valuable treasures stolen from the fire and water temples.  He impressed them and they agreed to follow their chieftain and fig for the Temple of Air.  When he returned to the temple he took his two surviving bugbears and the chieftain of the Trolls down to the leadership on the fourth level.  The leaders were impressed with his resourcefulness, ie in their desperation they forgave his betrayal and accepted his help and troll army.  And asked that he participate with a trap they had planned for the Party of intruders….

The party quickly reevaluated their options, twenty trolls in a wide corridor with enemies behind, vs giants, trolls and spell casters with trolls behind them.  It was hopeless.  But.  They were going to die.  Well the warlock was going to dimension door out of there and everyone else was going to die.  The wide corridor meant that they would be facing two trolls at a time or more in the other direction.  If only there was away to limit the number of enemies that they would need to fight at once.  The coloured passage ways were only ten feet across, if they were going to fight that would give them the best odds.  They charged the temple and ducked into the side passage closest to the main way.  The long passage ended in a large triangular room with a summoning circle in it.  Looking for advantage one party member looked at the circle and inspected it. They vanished.  Seeing their slim chances of winning a fight getting slimmer and wherever the circle sent the party member as potentially a safer place, they all entered the circle.  

Chocking dust.  The thick smell of methane.  Light reflected off the dust and the light extended a few feet from the source, but even without it the party's Darkvision was equally obscured.  At best they could only see thirty feet.  This place was certainly safer than the ambush they had left, but it clearly had its dangers.  They carefully moved through the cave?, if it was a cave.  They entered into a grotto and they saw a figure in the dust standing before them.  It appeared to be a statue of a cleric with a mace raised to stick the characters, but it was a statue, so finely crafted that the hairs on his beard snapped off when they were examined.  Clearly, this was a person who had been turned to stone!  

The statue was covered with dunes of dust, so clearly it had been a long time that he had been killed, still the cast around looking for tracks, but in the lig and the dust they could not find any.  They continued on.  Soon they found another passageway and they found tracks, the tracks were old and the dust had settled into them, almost obscuring them.  How long would it take the dust to fill in the tracks?  They asked the dwarf to try to cover their passage through the caves.  They decided to follow the tracks to the destination or the place where they started from, because they could not tell one or the other.  They found a camp with a tent, but the tent sagged with the weight of the dust.  The paladin went ahead to look in the tent while the Ranger/Assassin waited as a rear guard in the darkness.  So it was he, that first saw the woman wading through the dust and he stepped out to stop her in a gesture of friendship.  He surprised her and he attempted to grapple her when she tried to kill him with an arrow.  She surprised him with her strength and he was also surprised when her hair animated and attacked him with a snake bite.  The Ranger drew his Flametongue sword and the light it shed allowed him to see the beauty of his assailant, that and the hair of snakes a Medusa!  The rest of the party saw his flaming sword and dashed up to reach him.  The ranger attacked and damaged her, but when she moved it was to move to his other side so she could face the rest of the party.  They saw her and slowed instantly, stunned by her beauty!  The Bard realized that this was bad and motivated the party to attack the fell creature.  The party galvanized together and brought the creature down, the dwarf scoring two critical hits in a flurry of attacks as she surged forth.  Soon the medusa was dead at their feet before they turned to stone.  They knew now which way the lair of this beast was and they knew where its larder was, e paladin had discovered a pile of stone corpses in the tent.

They followed the tracks back to their fallen enemies lair and they soon found it.  But what they failed to realize was that there might be another Medusa in that lair.  The second medusa seeing their light source fired upon it from far out striking one person and missing another.  The characters dashed forward trying to find their attacker in the dust and darkness.  The cleric fired a vain shot in the direction of the first volley of arrows and struck the quarry.  The sound guided the Paladin to its location and he decided that he would get the kill for this fight and charged forth, glimpsing her beauty, she was hotter than Katie Perry! (ugh) and the paladin felt his limbs and torso begin to instantly turn to stone.  He felt his end so near and he reached out to use the Blessing of the Hidden Goddess and Hasted himself, which quickened his failing form and staved off his doom.  The fight was close, but only the paladin was close to death for the entire fight.  When they rested in the camp they all began to brainstorm a way to survive in this dangerous environment.  The dwarf experimented with soaking a cloth in water and wrapping it around her face, and the other party members saw this and copied it.  The medusa lair was defensible; it had a passage that was only five feet wide in the start and that would keep larger monsters out, but it would not keep everything out, they had already seen strange rock fish jumping from wall to wall like dolphins in water. 

The coming Days would present many challenges, in this strange environment.

Benefits Package

Filled out the benefits package application for my workplace, now as a permanent employee, I get one.  It is awesome!  Drug plan, dental, life insurance, accident insurance, pension plan, vacation, and sick leave.  All sorts of stuff.  I took a real pay cut coming to work for this company, granted i would be working for a new company and would have to rise up the ranks again, but starting at $18/hour or more in Landscaping, or starting at $14/hour at this job in retail, it is a no brainer.  Landscaping, 50-60 hours a week, retail cut off at 40 hours.  No brainer.  I should have stayed in Landscaping, three of the past four landscaping companies I worked for got me fast raises and large paychecks.  The retail less money.  Friends they continued in landscaping and got a major pay jump this year, I took a hit.  But, I am now working less hours in the winter, but I am working and I am not on EI.  True I am getting less money than I would have gotten landscaping.  But now I get benefits like the above.  Less money more in my pocket I think.  

Great year, but, why am I so unhappy?

D&D riddles in the Dark

Well apparently I might have sworn and cussed at some of my players last night, according to Natural20.  In my defense, I was reminding them what their powers were.  It feels like they were there, but not there.  That they did not know what their characters could do.  I felt that they had not taken an iota of preparation.  I might not have spent the amount of time that I would spend on an adventure either, I was coasting, but I was coasting on work that had been previously done.  The Characters were finishing the third level and they ran into a few things that were too easy for them.  But really they had in previous sessions battled some insanely powerful groups of creatures.  They had been ambushed in the forest and while the attackers had botched the attack, the players felt that they had won with only the skin of their teeth, the next adventure date they tracked the assaulters to their lair and fought two survivors and picked up a serious artifact and some potent magic items.  Next session they opened up an encounter and a single battle that nearly wiped out the entire party.  Then they decided to rest up in the carnage of the battle and were ambushed and forced out of the temple to rest.  So I felt that the party had gained enough experience and might need another level in the next little while.  So I granted them that level.  The single classed characters gained a attribute increase or a feat.  The fighter took Savage Attack, granting a once a turn reroll of damage dice.  The Druid tookLlucky, granting a thrice per long rest reroll of any dice, the paladin took Shield Mastery, allowing more better AC and other benefits.  The Cleric that missed most of the adventure to date showed up and took Alert, meaning he was immune to surprise and got a +5 to initiative rolls.   The multi classed characters gained in their second classes.  The rogue became an assassin and he was happy, but I was angry with him for some reason.  No, it was not him it was the ones I could not be angry at.  The Druid, who wants to play but doesn't wanted to look up the rules of her character class.  Who just picks spells out of the book that she could cast and says that she therefore had put them in her spells.  And then she plays on her phone all through the session.  The Absentee Cleric, also doesn't know his characters and will just say that he is comming and then say that he can't come.  Which is fine, but he should choose.  But it is me, right?  I should come to a game without my baggage too.

So.  The characters start off in the forest and head back to where they left off, go down the corridor that they bypassed for the door where the battle occured the day before, or head over to the secret door, the one the Druid forgot that she found the previous day, three weeks ago.  I am a good GM, so I remind her.  Nice GM.  They choose the secret door.  They find a troll in the next room and there is a chain in it, but it is broken and there is a key on the wall, but they tell me that the troll must be locked up in the room, the room's door is unlocked, but someone has already said the room is a jail cell, so now everyone is calling it a jail cell.  The room is 20'x20', the creature is 10' tall, but four of them could fit in the room.  The space that we were playing in was about 10'x10' and the were 7 people in it, but they would never call that a jail cell.  They kill the Troll.  They use fire, which kills it.  Then the Assassin pokes out of the room and that room is in darkness and so he is invisible as a Gloom Stalker.  He is sneaking through the room and he opens a door and he sees a creature, but he freaks out because I give a good description of a creature in the dark and he runs away to tell the party members. When he returns there are three trolls in the larger room and he decides to attack them as an assassin. He targets them and rolls to hit, he has surprise, becuase he is invisible in the dark as per Gloom Stalker.  He targets the first Troll and fires.  He hits. 

As an Assaassin he gets an automatic critical with every attack before the creatures first attack.  And so he rolls for critical damage using the wrong number of dice.  He casted a spell that adds a d6 to damage.  So he rolls a d8 for arrow damage, a d6 for spell damage, and a backstab damage for 2d6 but forgets that his backstab was just increased from 1d6.  So I remind him.  Then he doubles those dice for 2d8 and 6d6.  His second attack is a Gloom Stalker attack but he forgets this, it is 2d8, so he rolls 4d8 and 2d6 damage, and his last attack is for 2d8 and 2d6.  He literally killed the first target with three arrows.  Then he acts first in the non surprise.  A misread of the rules by the players says he gets automatic criticals if he acts first in e round and no one else has had an action.  I just re-read the rule, it is not so, but whatever.  The next troll is almost killed and the first troll gets up thanks to regeneration and then they bring out the fire and the game is over for the trolls.  They find the four keys, and then wonder aloud why the trolls were in Jail cells again.  Face palm.

There is another door and stairs the warlock takes the stairs and finds a secret door and he comes back down.  The characters were litterally seconds from going on the greatest journey of their lives, but they decide to go through the door.  They head down into a hallway but wisely send the assassin through first.  He enters and sees a large giant with two heads arguing with himself and he decides to assassinate it.  It was an ettin.  It died, because the combination of assassin and gloom stalker is really broken.  Fine.  

The gloom stalker forgot how much damage his backstab did again.  His player complained that he is playing two games and has to keep two characters in his head.  I deadpaned him and told him I have to keep track of all the six characters, the Npcs characters, the monsters, the rooms, the world and all the other things.  It is hard, but try to keep track of just your character.  Which is what I wished to say.  I was annoyed, I might have actually said it; I can't remember.  Natural20 says that I swore at him.  

The rogue thinks to try the four troll Keyes on the four large locks and looks behind each door and finds stairs leading up behind each and he locks each door in turn back up again before preceding down the hallway and ignoring the doors.  Fine.  They hear water bubbling from the right, but head left.  Before them is a large room but the Elf detects a secret door and they take that they find themselves in a jail cell with two humans and some small and medium sized bad guys, they are all emaciated but the humans claim there was more humans before, but the bad guys ate him.  The discussion begins as always with found prisoners and they let the bad guys go and take the humans with them.  They cut e locked door down, because the lock is on the other side of the door.  They get out and see that they are on the other side of one of the locked doors that the troll keys unlocked, ere is another door and they open it and find four emaciated monster prisoners.  They kill them.  They then decide that each of the iron doors, that the troll keys unlock must be securing prisoners and they must investigate, they back track.

The party is travelling in darkness.  All the main Pcs has Darkvision.  The NPCs do not.  They send the Gloom Stalker ahead, because he is invisible to Darkvision.  He scouts out the rooms quietly and calls the rest in.  Someone makes a lot of noise and some creatures enter the area attracted by the sound.  There are 16 shadows, which are undead, but cannot be seen without light, because they are shadows.  In the darkness they can see the people except for the gloom stalker, becuase he is invisible in the dark, but so are the shadows.  The shadows attack the characters, except Korin e Gloom stalker and many of them hit and they drain strength.  An argument, minor argument that when they do initiative I should tell them the name of the creature that they are fighting, becuase they are going to find out eventually, I decline on the grounds that if I tell them they are Shadows, they will know how to find them …. All the characters are confused, cheating may have been mentioned.  The two prisoners die right away.  The NPC cleric casts light spell and all the shadows become visible.  The PC absentee Cleric is going to fight the shadows, but the kind DM suggests that his character might want to do something else.  

It feels that people are just showing up and expecting me to play their characters for them.  I am clearly getting super annoyed at things.  It might, probably is something else outside the game.

It might be e plight of the DM.  Always the DM, never the player.

In the past three years I have had about eighty sessions, seventy-five of them where I was the DM and five where I was the player and they were one shots.  Two of those were with my friend who is dying, so my prospect of playing in any games again seems unlikely.  But, it would be nice if my players showed up wanting to play.  Might ask Natural20 to bring a game next time and we can play that instead of roleplaying.

There was more stuff, the players started talking about capturing some trolls and cornering the market in Troll Penis medicine, chaining down some trolls and lopping off their penises every minute and allowing them to regrow, drying the member out and powdering it for sale.  The Gloom Stalker Assassin got mad at the silliness and stalked off and killed things.  He could have been seriously killed but, as I said the combination is broken.  they got back together and went into one last room and it was the one that the riddle that they got a ten days previously and about three months ago.  

They solved the riddle with a lot of help.  Mountains.  It was a hard riddle, but I feel that They were not trying.

On three, in six, lies nine.

Vile good cloaked by fair evil for eternity,

Will you answer Answerer where is your power pray?

With the welp of Jarda and there until doomsday.

On the third level, in a six sided room

Good cloaked with evil.

Key, to location and object.  In a room that looks evil good is cloaked, but also an evil chamber cloaked with a chamber of good.  The six sided chamber was hidden by a false temple to good in an evil temple.  Not in the least bit suspicious.  A vampire in a coffin, an illusion covering the good paladin.  The rest was just window dressing.  

Next session I have to say that the paladin heiress to Greysteel, the rightful heir gave three of them tokens, a medallion, a belt of gold, and a dagger to the three most help ful characters.  They also get the Blessing of the unspeakable Goddess, one spell of a greater level than their character could cast.