So, first, before I write the story, let me just let you guys know that I’ve changed the naming format because Gage gave me an idea during the session. Instead of naming these stories, “D&D Club Part #: [​story name here],” I’m going to name them like I named this story, as if they’re episodes of a TV show. The reason I did this is because this is the last session before spring break, and after the break, the sessions will be monthly instead of being either weekly or bi-weekly. Gage told us to think of it like the end of a TV show season, so consider this the finale for the D&D Club pilot season.

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When me and my grandma arrived, Isaac and Julia were waiting outside with Isaac’s mom. Once Duncan let us in, I got set up in my usual seat at the head of the table, and Duncan gave me his box of spell cards. I looked through the entire deck, searching for the cards for my spells. I saw a lot of interesting level 1 and 2 spells, as well as cantrips, but I mostly quickly read the names of the level-3-and -above spells, since they weren’t really useful to me at the moment. I got all my spell cards and ordered them as they were on my spell sheet, and then opened my box of magic item cards and took out my ring of spell storing, and gave Julia her helm of telepathy. The board was already set up, so Gage didn’t kick us out of the living room like he normally does. I also changed my prepared spells while we waited, this time preparing the level 1 spells Burning Hands, Feather Fall, Magic Missile, and Sleep, and the level 2 spells Alter Self, Invisibility, Misty Step, and Shatter. As I did this, Gage told Julia that Blaze had been nerfed, as her Hunter’s Mark spell that been useful to us before would now require a spell slot to be used.


So, Gage gave us the usual recap: we had beaten a roper, saved Ash and Blaze from it, fought through a tribe of troglodytes, including a mage and a monitor lizard, and we had sent Nox in (as an ant) to investigate a dwarven forge. After Nox was discovered when the leader of the tribe almost stepped on him, he was interrogated by her (with Gage playing all the dwarves in a hilarious Russian accent). Last we left off, Knox had told her that he had come alone and wasn’t sure if anyone else had been sent by Baron Alfin of Mirabar to map out the mines, and that he had snuck past the orcs and troglodytes (or “troggies,” as Grayson called them). The dwarf leader told Nox that part of their caves were home to a terrible curse, which was hindering them from restoring Durgeddin’s forgings, and that a dragon lived deep within the cave. Blaze was also sneaking towards Nox’s location to help him in case something bad happens. The last thing we did before the session ended was debating whether we should have Nox ask the dwarf leader if he could have assistance with ending the curse.

So, once Gage told us we were live, we continued with Nox’s interrogation, sort of. I don’t exactly remember what happened, since this was six hours ago at the time of writing this, so I’ll skip ahead a few minutes to the rest of the group. Blaze had snuck past the automatons in the room above the forge, and the rest of us (me, Ash, and Henry) were waiting in the next room over. However, the rat familiar of the dwarven mage that was currently on the floor below Blaze, at the forge, had just crawled up the stairs. It saw Blaze, and the dwarf leader did something with the wall and, upstairs, the automatons started to glow. Noticing this, one of the people our group who was in the other room (again, I forgot who) told us we had to go help Blaze, and we joined her in rushing downstairs. This was where the plan our group had formulated over the week came into play.

We had Ash, who had the highest Persuasion out of all of us (+4) do the talking, explaining to the dwarf leader that Baron Alfin had sent us to map out the mines as well, but separately from the manacled Nox, who we had to pretend to not know at all. When the leader asked how we came by the orcs and troglodytes, Ash told her that we had snuck past them and fought a few. She asked if the entire tribe was dead, and Ash told her, “As far as we know, yes.” (This is true, as every orc and troglodyte we ever encountered was killed, but we don’t know if there are others in the caves.)

She explained to all of us, including Nox (who was now un-manacled), that there was a part of the cave that had been cursed by an old mage (whose name I have forgotten), and now a necrotic curse lines its walls. Our mission was to rid the caves of the curse. Little did we know that this would be one of the hardest battles we would ever get into, but also one I will take great joy in describing for you. Before the battle, however, we took a long rest, and I did something that would be very useful later: I finally attuned the platemail armor, which we had gotten from the orc, for Henry. I never did this before, even though we’ve had it for several sessions, because I had always used our long rests to reset my spell slots. However, we were at a forge, so I figured, “Why the heck not?” I asked the dwarfs if I could use their forge, and they said, in an almost snobbish voice, that I could try to work it out. Lucky for me, I rolled my first ever 20 on a d20 die and successfully attuned Henry’s armor.

After the rest, the dwarves opened the gate for us and we walked into the narrow hallway that would prove to be very deadly. We went left, with me staying in the back, closest to the exit, but also making sure nothing snuck up on us from the other end of the hallway, and Ash going first. Even though he was the weakest, he was “our scout,” according to Duncan. Unfortunately for Ash, when he went into the kitchen, the table in there turned out to be a mimic!

The beast knocked Ash over and (basically) crushed his ribs. Once again, Ash was on the verge of death, and it would take a lucky roll to get him out of this one. On his first roll, Ash rolled a frickin’ 20! His guardian angel, which Gage told us about on the group chat, appeared before him and slapped him on the face. Yes, Ash was “Will Smithed” back to life. (That’s what Grayson said.) We all cheered, and then continued the mimic fight. Since Ash was still wounded, he couldn’t fight, but we were able to finish it off without him. (“The mimic is - literally - on its last leg.” - Gage, making a joke.) Nox healed Ash, and then the chaos began. Because of all the shouting and cheering and panicking, I couldn’t get a good grasp of all the events, but I’m going to summarize it as best I can.

It began when we turned around and went down the longer hallway. Blaze opened the first door we saw, which was to the left of us, and inside was a suit of armor. It came to life and started to charge towards the door. Blaze slammed it shut, but that’s not going to help because it’s an animated set of metal armor with an axe and that’s a steel door that will eventually break. We heard it banging on the door, and then, out of nowhere, a ghost appeared. It cast a spell, which aged us all by 30 years, so we were all in our 50s. That wasn’t bad for Blaze, who would live to approximately 700, or really any of us except Henry, who would die if that spell was cast again. Isaac made a roll as Gage asked him and he total number (it was plus a skill that I forgot) was 24, so we had 24 hours to reverse the effects of the curse before it was permanent.

The ghost also left us Frightened, and some giant monsters appeared in the room ahead of us. I forgot what they were called, but they were big. Since we were Frightened, the fight was off to a slow start, but I remember Nox, Ash, and Blaze being wounded, and me readying a Magic Missile. (I forgot what Henry did.) Slowly, the effect wore off on each of us, mine being the last, and we continued the fight. In the midst of Nox, Blaze, and I firing spells at the monsters and Ash and Henry swinging their swords (“I’ll use my rapier because I’m a r*per.” - Grayson, saying the wrong word), the suit of animated armor broke down the door and attacked Blaze, wounding her.

Around this time, I was also possessed by the ghost when it returned. I started attacking my friends by breathing a cone of acid, but I luckily wouldn’t be able to us it again. For my next two turns, Gage controlled my character. I made one roll for a dagger swing at Ash, who had gone back, but I luckily rolled a 3 and it barely scratched him. Henry was wounded by the acid, but the armor protected him. Blaze was severely wounded, but attempted to use to helm of telepathy to communicate with the armor. She gave Nox a look to not teleport her out of the room, where she was basically trapped with the armor, but that was a stupid idea, as it didn’t work and she was once again wounded, though not as bad as before.

Then, I forgot how, but something horrible happened: Nox was killed. Yes, our Changeling friend Nox was slain in the heat of battle. All of us - even Blaze - saw his corpse finally morph into his true Changeling form. (If you’re wondering what Duncan did for the rest of the session, he went on his laptop and was searching through D&D Beyond to decide what to do for his next character, which would be a fairy.) The grieving would have to wait, however, as we still had to heal Blaze and stop the monsters. Luckily, Nox’s death was not in vain, as the moonbeam he had summoned did kill the armor. On my turn, I rolled a high number on the d20 and the spirit left my body. Since it was in the open, Ash attacked it and managed to vanquish the spirit… for now. Gage told us that it would return later on if we didn’t stop the reason for why it was here in the first place (the curse) before it was time for it to come back.

As you can tell, my memory blanks out a lot around this time, but in the end, the armor was gone, one of the monsters was dead, and Blaze had managed to sneak into an underground room accessed via a stairwell at the end of a hallway in the monster room. Inside, she met a lady, who was basically a pathological liar. She lied that the curse of the mage was keeping her in this room, and then tried to use her eyes to take control of Blaze’s body. Julia got a good role and Blaze managed to avoid this, but she entered a telepathic conversation with the lady. They didn’t really say anything useful. (Also, Gage pulled Julia aside several to times to tell her things in private, which she still hasn’t told us. However, she said this was one of the things she told him about, or something like that.) The rest of us got into the room, with Ash entering his angel form.

Upon seeing the angelic Ash, the lady said some very menacing things, about how he would never see the heavens again and his friends (us) would all betray him. She had Charmed Ash, and this would be fine if it was normal Ash, but this was Ash in his angelic form. He could kill us all rather quickly under the lady’s control. Luckily, I came in to save the day once again. (I always do: I killed the manticore that tried to kill us on our way to the mine, and I remember firing the kill shot at another enemy in the mines, but I could be wrong.) I wanted to cast Shatter, but we were in too small of a room to do it without everyone else getting damaged, so I resorted to casting Magic Missile. This time, however, I used a second-level slot. With a roll of 11, I killed the lady and she faded into dust. The second monster and the skeletons died, Ash was freed, and the curse was lifted. In my mind, I imagined the happy part of “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” playing. (The part that begins with “The curse it lives on in their eyes.”) Even more appropriate for the moment, Duncan had turned the living room lights on (on Gage’s request) right before I casted the spell, so the room went from dark to bright. In terms of loot, we found 6 spell scrolls (Alarm, Disguise Self, Enlarge/Reduce, Shield, Web, and Spider Claw) and some valuable gems on the bookshelves of the room the lady was in.

We still had 10 minutes left, but this was a natural stopping point. Duncan said I could have the Wand of the War Mage that Nox had gotten during the last session, and I forgot what happened to the other stuff from Nox’s corpse. We all advanced to level 5, and my homework is to pick two level 3 spells, although I really only have to pick one, as the plan from the beginning was to get the incredibly-useful Fireball. As we cleaned up, Gage explained that we now had two options: we could continue on our way through the caves and slay the dragon, or we could return to the surface, as we had mapped out the mines and completed Baron Alfin’s contract. Plus, we had done what the dwarves had asked us to do, so all our tasks were completed. If we chose to return to the surface, it would be an open world game once we returned to Mirabar and told Baron Alfin that we had completed our mission. (Gage told us to think of it as completing a video game tutorial.)

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So, yeah, this was a pretty great season finale. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and I’m gonna go change the names of the other episodes to follow the name of this one.

Also, while you’re writing the comment about your thoughts on this story, why not suggest a name for our group?