D&D Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen Session 7

Group 2 made their way deeper into the Underdark.  As they entered a large cavern, they turned to find several Drow up on a ledge behind them, including a priestess of Lolth.  The priestess did her best to persuade our two Drow party members that their duty was to carry out the will of Lolth (which she, as a priestess, just happened to know) by turning on the surface-dwelling sheep they'd been travelling with.  Our Drow declined the invitation, with the female Bard pointing out that she wasn't about to take orders from someone who followed a lowly male like Valan Jaelre.  (Our male Drow Thief got a pensive look at this discussion of a male being in charge, but he kept his thoughts on the matter to himself.)

Drow Options by Tomas Giorello

Discussion devolved into violence, as was perhaps inevitable, and the Jaelre elite guards leapt to the attack; they were soon joined by a gigantic spider dropping from the ceiling, and an elusive assassin striking from her pool of darkness in the back of the cavern.  Poisonous blasts from the priestess and crushing blows from her brutish companion managed to knock out the valiant Dragonborn Paladin, but he was revived by the Bard, and a concentrated series of attacks by the party brought him down. 

The spider's handler, a Drow with his mouth sewn shut with a leather cord, was the next to fall, followed by the spider itself, and from there it was a matter of mopping up the assassin and the priestess.  The party left both of these Drow alive for questioning, and with a combination of persuasion and threats, they learned a bit more of Valan Jaelre's plan to weaken the wards around Shadowdale.  Despite assurances of safe release, our Drow Bard struck the priestess upside the head with her banjo -- rolling a 20 in the process, making this a rare example of a critical banjo strike and killing the priestess instantly.

A secret door in the shadows of the cavern led them onwards into the darkness, to a giant cavern with a building-sized stalactite hanging from the ceiling: the Demonspur.

*Characters need to be from 4th-edition D&D Essential books or you can play using one of our pre-generated characters. A DM is now available starting at 3:30pm Wednesdays to help with any character creations and/or conversions.