A Very Spelunking Holiday

A Very Spelunking Holiday (T1)
9/25/19

DM: Whitney

Players:
 * Birch (Wood Elf Monk)
 * Cade (Halfling Rogue)
 * Orion (War Cleric)
 * Kromax (Gnome Wizard)
 * Cinder (Fire Genasi Monk)
 * il Pappagallo (Lore Bard)
 * Aust (Half Elf Bard)

Premise
The nearby tiny town of Cherry Creek had complained last week of animal noises and asked Vigil for help. The adventurers dealt with an evil wizard named Noke who had been experimenting with polymorphing people into animals, Cherry Creek was appeased for a time…but it wasn't long before longer, ruder, and more profane letters began showing up at the mayoral office. The staff is furious! At this point, this is harassment! After all, didn't the party successfully deal with the noise problem by defeating Noke and ending his experiments? Uh well, not quite...

Oh what, there was a gibbering mouther loose? Oh what, it's gone some natural cave formations with tunnels that extend underneath Cherry Creek? Oh what, it's still babbling and driving everybody (underground life included) bonkers insane, leading to streams of underground pests suddenly appearing all over town? OH WHAT, there are other things afoot in the tunnels that may herald worse things, like a dastardly necromancer searching for the Hand of Vecna? Can the party survive these dangerous underground caverns and defeat the gibbering mouther all-the-while dodging those pesky cultists?

Summary
"tl;dr party yelled at by Barry for not finishing their job from last week since Cherry Creek is still complaining, party sets off towards Cherry Creek to investigate, party fights off giant bugs on the way that have emerged from belowground, defeats swarms of rot grubs coming out of Cherry Creek's well, told that pests have been emerging from the ground, discover that there is a set of natural cave and tunnel formations to the southwest of Cherry Creek that may extend near the town, party finds tiny entrance and enters, fights off some mushrooms and giant spiders and an ooze, defeat the gibbering mouther with the help of some priests, priests turn out to be evil death cultists, party defeats evil death cultists and figures out that they were possibly in search of the Hand of Vecna"

Angry Bugbears
The party do what good jobless adventurers do and head to the job board for any postings, but it's sadly empty. However, some fat messenger pigeons fly overhead towards the mayor's office, and soon there are shouts of "BY THE GODS AT THIS POINT IT'S HARASSMENT!" The group investigates and realizes that Barry the Bugbear is fending off a swarm of fat pigeons. He says that these have been coming from Cherry Creek for the last few weeks, and even though he had sent a group of adventurers there last week, Cherry Creek insists that their noise and animal complaint wasn't fixed - in fact, they insist that it's gotten worse! He promises the group a good monetary award to go to this town and deal with their problem once and for all, and they accept.

Bugs and More Bugs
On the way towards Cherry Creek, which is only perhaps 10 miles north, the weather starts out OK but quickly turns wet and miserable. The group comes across a stream that has swollen with the rain. They hear some clicking noises and look closer, and the stream spills over into this divot in the ground where some giant insects (stats of giant centipedes and swarms of insects) were taking shelter. Maddened and confused by the deluge of water, they attack the party, which handily defeats them. At the town, they see that most people have gone inside due to the rain. They look around for some sort of mayor's building but are drawn to the town square by a scream!

The well in town square is teeming with swarms of pale, wormlike creatures (stats of swarm of rot grubs), which is wriggling towards a frightened young boy. A woman swoops in to save the kid, and the party intercedes as well. Though some bugs manage to tunnel into Birch's arm, the group burns the rot grubs to death. The woman thanks the party and reveals that she's Mrs. Fossoway, the town's schoolmarm and unofficial leader. She's the one who's been sending rude, nonstop messages to Barry in order to get help. She reveals that more pests have been crawling out and attacking the townsfolk from cellars and crevices in the ground. The party questions her further on the origins of these pests, and she points them toward her brother, Mr. Edwardson, who might know more.

Mr. Edwardson is an old fellow who was one of the founders of Cherry Creek. He had initially plotted the town to be a mile southwest of its actual location, but he realized that there were so many tunnels and caves underneath that area that it might be unstable, so he moved Cherry Creek to its present location. He tells the group where the cave entrances can be found. The group rests up for the day, and in the morning, they hike towards the caves.

Bugs, But Underground This Time
The group finds a small entrance in a hillside that seems to lead deeper, so they crawl their way in. After an uncomfortable crawl downwards, the tunnel opens up to reveal a large pool of water with only a little ledge at the side. A few party members fall in and are assaulted by angry blind fish, but they make it across. There are several other obstacles - a fake stalactite bug (stats of a piercer) that drops on Aust's head and knocks him out, some mushrooms whose spores induce euphoria (DC 12 CON save, 1d4 effect: 1, must sing; 2, must eat something now (munchies); 3, the person next to you definitely needs a wrestling match; 4, let's start a sporeball match!), and in general, sometimes faraway echoes of babbling mad speech.

The party later finds 4 giant spiders running at them. They defeat two, but two spiders disengage and run away from what appears to be a floating spider...but it's not, it's a spider body stuck inside a gelatinous cube! They defeat the cube with il Pappagallo's Shatter Spell, but it shatters some loot as well. When the gelatinous cube breaks open and the party picks through its acidic, jelly-like remains, they only find some shattered bones...and a partially melted holy symbol that looks sort of like a hand.

''[DM Note: I was not expecting them to shatter the gelatinous cube. There were meant to be other bodies inside the cube that had fallen prey to the ooze, which would have awarded a bit more gold and also clues about cultists ahead. Two of the bodies would have been skeletons missing an arm and with remnants of robes]''

Evil Death Cultists
As the group proceeds forward, the babbling sounds closer and closer...and the party makes out sounds of combat! They see that the mouther that they ran away from last week is fighting off two priests. The adventurers help the priests (stats of slightly beefier acolytes) defeat the gibbering mouther, which had been the thing driving all the pests aboveground. However, the two priests, Kelrick and Torrigan, notice that the adventurers are...not of their group. The group also notices that these two priests are missing left arms and are dressed in ominous dark robes...

Kelrick says "Death and Darkness" - a passphrase used by their group - and the party obviously doesn't know the correct response "Rise from the Decay!", so Kelrick shouts for help. Their leader, a priest named Kemavor, arrives (stats of a beefier priest). Kemavor summons four skeletons and also a spiritual weapon that looks like a black and red hand. The party eventually wears Kemavor down and kills his skeletons, especially with a good Turn Undead from Orion. On his corpse, they find a fine silver holy symbol that looks like a hand with an embedded eyeball and a book. This book looks to be made of human skin and is called "Birth of Darkness". The party torches the book and the priests' bodies. They peer into the tunnels where Kemavor had emerged from and see another long, dark path. They decide to turn around, return to the surface, and report their findings and get their gold.

Plothooks

 * There is a cult called the Path of the Undying One that is searching for the Hand of Vecna and are looking to summon the lich as well!
 * This cult's leader, only known as the Undying One, has not been revealed yet.
 * These cultists often lop off their own left hands in anticipation and devotion towards their goals
 * The cultists often have passphrases to distinguish friend from foe, many of which are quotes from their holy scriptures.
 * These cultists also carry on them holy symbols shaped like a hand with an eyeball embedded in its palm and copies of "Birth of Darkness", which is an evil grimoire that details how to make undead and instructions to summon Vecna.
 * They were unrelated to the previous week's evil polymorphing wizard and the resulting gibbering mouther - they had attacked the mouther for infringing on their search for the Hand, and the party had stumbled upon them by accident