16 - 7/23

A meeting was called in the courtyard to decide what to do with the new information provided by the disgruntled Hobgoblin captain. A party of nine was assembled to rapidly head to Whiteridge, in an effort to beat the enemy forces to where they left the rest of the group   After a bit of spell copying, the group tore off into the night back to their home. The valley remained a safe passage with the snow still melted and quick time was made under the moon and star light. Once on the other side, the group prepared to make their way up the pass to the village, but noticed something circling in the sky. Shane and Honey noticed they were giant owls, and appeared to be carrying riders. They didn’t stick around long, and quickly turned back and flew towards the western part of the forest.   Finally back in Whiteridge, the group arrived only for the weather to take a drastic and sudden turn. Torrential downpour and thunder and lighting arrived as quick as a flash, and the group rushed towards the entrance in search of their companions. Outside the group found a crude statue depicting a woman in armor, but still no sign of their friends. Inside the entrance a grizzly sight awaited the group, and the body of their old friend Bloth lie on the ground. Further on, it seemed that Johann suffered a similar fate. Thankfully Aubrin had survived the attack, barely, and with a bit of healing was able to relay that a group of insane fish humanoids attacked! With the pipe repaired, the water drained down the tunnel and a group of Kuo-Toa came up to find out where their flow of water had gone.   The group wondered what had happened to the remainder of their companions and ventured a guess that they might have hid out with the kobolds. Upstairs they found Sweet Taffy, Sumoni and Apple Slices huddled around a small fire while the kobolds labored away at building their tunnels. The kuo-toa not only killed a few of their friends, but took others captive! The group rushed down and jumped down the damp, water filled tunnel and set off after them   After a long distance of traveling through waist high water, the group came to a dry side tunnel right before the tunnel completely submerged. Here the group split into two and proceeded to head in opposite directions. Theta tripped a few traps before he, Honey, Mithris and Valerie ran into a group of Derro who had holed up in an old tomb with iconography of her deity Solanus in it. Valerie beseeched her deity for aid, and blessed the entire party. The Derro Savant launched spells and the derro plinked away at the group, but the party prevailed. Inside the tomb the group found a dead dwarven adventurer as well as a journal and interesting murals on the wall.   The other group, made up of Hilda, Dominic, Ushat and Shane ventured to the right and found a room with two waterfalls. With careful examination the group found a bag at the bottom of a pool, which turned out to be a Handy Haversack filled with useful items. Further up, the group decimated a group of kuo-toa and checked out the right passage where a bunch of fish swam around in a pool. Both groups heard a scream, and converged in a corrupted jungle of mushrooms to find Ochre fleeing from more Kuo-toa. The large group easily handled the fish-people, but not before they began some ceremony. An enormous Myconid mushroom peered down, giving the group a fright but otherwise not showing hostility. He relayed that something was corrupting his people, but the group had no time to press questions further and rushed onwards to save their friends from the grisly fate that awaited them at the flippers of the kuo-toa.