In the previous installment, the party made a lot of noise and then camped on the spot where the combat occurred, drawing some attention to themselves while they snored away inside a Secure Shelter. Upon awaking, they found the front door almost glued shut by what turned out to be webs.
The webs were not so thick as to be unbreakable (they were placed there so the arachnids would be warned when the party emerged). But whoever had placed the webs was long gone. Kemp did some tracking and found many "small, light humanoid" and "claw or dagger-like" prints on the ground, circling the Shelter and leading off in two directions - one set of tracks toward where they buried Bear's body, and another off towards where they buried Bear's equipment. No tracks could be found leading away from the area, so after some deliberation, they determined that the robbers must have come from above.
<aside: the location of the banshee's clearing is precisely below the Inverted Tower, 400 feet or so above.>
After cobbling together a way for everyone to travel up, via a combination of levitation, flight, and using Reduce Person spells to make people tiny, the group ascended. Eventually they came within sight of the Tower, it's portcullis down and two humans (disguised drow spider riders) inside, desultorily grooming their mounts while a half dozen dog-sized spiders scurried about the place. The group entered via some quick thinking and Dimension Door and began a fight.
After the first round, however, things turned south. Two driders appeared from balconies above the spider stable and began raining down spells on the group, who had not gained much momentum in their efforts to secure the area. It was at this point that Paco, the hobbit, took a hard left turn into the land of unintended consequences.
Paco noticed two doors. One on the right, past the drow and their spiders, was standing open and apparently that is where the two riders had come from. The one on the left was closed. Thinking it might be a good way to get around behind the driders <edit: I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here, I don't know that he thought it through any further than "Oh look! A door!" and ran to open it.
The door was, of course, a trap which released a Most Excellent Prismatic Spray, damaging pretty much everyone in the room, killing off all the spiders and both driders, but hurting the party as well. Paco himself was driven mad by a beam of green energy, while Kemp was driven off the material plane completely. His whereabouts is currently unknown.
This could have been a TPK if I'd decided to press the issue; the drow high priestess, the fighter lord, the monk, the two sneaks and various other underlings were untouched at this point and only showed up after the Prismatic Spray. The behir hadn't even shown up. I decided instead to parlay with the group, and we proceeded to broker a deal whereby the drow would return Bear and his equipment, even returning him to life in return for performing a task and promising never to return to the Tower or speak of it to anyone.
This was acceptable to the party, of course, so the party left to spend several days recuperating and figuring out what happened to Kemp. Nothing conclusive was determined about Kemp's destination, and a Divination spell revealed to Fhaariys that "This is not the warrior you should be concerned about at this time..."
Meanwhile, the drow were as good as their word. Bear was sewn back together and Raised, and became the temporary plaything of Matron Cheliax, the high priestess. He got to see a bit more of what the drow had to hand, such as the behir, the gargoyle fighter and a number of other NPCs the party never saw, and learned that these were not people he wanted to toy with.
In three "days" time, the party returned, accepted the Geas spells from Cheliax, and departed.
At this time they decided to return all the way to town, feeling out of their depth in this cave and wishing to stock up significantly for the more serious effort required to travel onward.
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