Dungeon of the Mad Mage: Level 2

The session started where we left off: fighting two mimics. Thankfully, we dispatched them quickly. The only notable issue was that Selene shot them with acid damage, to which they seemed to be immune, however a failed check convinced her that she should try again. Unfortunately, we killed them before that could happen.

Emboldened by our success, we crashed into the following hall. Literally, as Okos rolled a 1 for stealth and ran into a bunch of shovels and pickaxes propped to the wall. As we were doing the evil eye in his direction, we all failed our perception checks and were promptly ambushed by 20 Stirges descending from the ceiling. 10 attacked Okos (for making the noise), 1 Zyn (for entering first) and 9 Selene (for reasons). Damage was done, and Selene fell unconscious. 

 

Having no knowledge of the foe (or just forgot to ask?), I did not cast Burning Hands, fearing that the agile creatures might survive (they wouldn't have) and asked Szivem to Fireball us instead. She did. We then made a short rest to recover.

And then, the moment we've been waiting for... we descended the stairs to level 2!

We immediately noticed the change in the air. Our movement was no longer hampered. Unfortunately, we were still restricted to spell level 3.

We picked a direction and forged on, reaching a hall with chopped up dwarven reliefs. No secrets in the room, so we marched right into a bunch of goblinoids building something. Well, 3 were building, while 4 were giving directions and looking at the schematics. Figures. We were a bit rusty on the social interactions, so we made fools of ourselves both in and out of the game. At least we had a good laugh and we made some friends. 

The "engineers" were making an auction hall. Unsure when it would be done at their pace, but they also lead us to their main settlement, a goblinoid market set up in a great hall. There we looked around for stuff, but the prices were too low to sell and too high to buy. Except for Selene, who bought a cloak of seeing invisibility for 1500 gc. In the middle, a high throne raised with skins and bones.

We walked around, entering the goblin ruler's chambers first by accident. Well, sort of goblin. We had previously gathered that Yek had become "beautiful to outsiders but repulsive to the goblins", and boy was that right. He was such an attractive human, in fact, that the female adventurers all had to do checks, but only Selene fell in love. So we started talking to him, and of course Okos had to stick it to him. This almost triggered combat, but the girls went into overdrive. They bowed and scraped, heaping flattery on the guy until he relented, and instead invited them to spend some time with him, alone. Selene immediately agreed. We also were hired to kill all the Xanathar-guild goblinoids on this level, for a substantial reward.[1]

We exited the chambers, while Okos was taken to the jail to "cool off". There he met and freed an imprisoned goblin by smashing the lock on her cage. She paid him back by telling about Yek's magical crown that transformed him into a human, Yek's treasure room, and the exact road to get down to level 3.

The rest of us were then approached by some other goblins, who hired us to steal or take the crown, as they disliked serving a human. Szivem immediately went back to the throne room.

The plot thickens.

[1] Quote of the day: 'Ask him with Perception!'