So we found a guide who would take us to the Grimmerzhul fort. I managed to flummox the DM by immediately identifying him as a werewolf so a couple of us, who had been listening to my suspicions, were ready when he transformed. Give me some blatant hints as to what we're meant to be doing and I'll look around clueless but tell me someone has blackouts and comes around to find his companions dead then I know exactly what's going on.
Before we left we picked up some side-quests and spent some of our hard-earned gold. I now have hedge wizard gloves. I then spent some time turning peoples' clothes pink and changing the taste of their saliva. During the long rest the wizard's pet Pumpkin evolved from a guard drake companion to a rage drake mount. It's going to be nice having exp only shared between five of us.
We left the recuperating guide with our cart in a side passage and walked towards the structure in a chasm. The duergar fort is three separate structures joined together to form a triangle. It is also of ancient minotaur origin and we could tell it was, at least at the front gate, populated by orcs. Based on this information and no visible grey dwarves we were a little dubious that this was the place we wanted but decided to go in wands blazing.
The plan was for the wizard to drop a stinking cloud inside, let the swordmage teleport in and find the lever to open the gate and then block the orcs' available exit, preferably without dying. No plan survives contact with the enemy. In our case no plan seems to survive contact with the party. The wizard dropped the cloud, the swordmage teleported in and then started whacking people, all the while taking absurd damage. Eventually we got the door open and the wizard moved the cloud around to kill off the orcs, leaving a passage right to the exit. Fortunately all the orcs were too dominated to actually take the path (or the DM just took pity on us).
Either way, one fight in and already the swordmage has used up a number of his healing surges. We continued through the fort, finding an armoury (which made our paladin's eyes light up, almost give the quest in and just go back to pick up the cart) the orc living quarters and a smithy. The smith fight was interesting. There was a controller who threw knives at us and burned any metal weapons in our hands (I had a burning torch and a wand in my hand at this point and not my dagger. Win!). Although it wasn't as tough as the first fight the swordmage had to use yet more surges.
There were two exits from the smithy. The interrogated smith said that the boss was at the fort to the north but one of the enemies in the fight had attempted to run the other way. We decided to go to the more southern fort first. Here we found a couple of human captives working the kitchens for the duergar. We went charging into the next room where a couple of dwarves waited. The main guy actually swelled in size when he was bloodied. It was freakish and wrong. We were flanked by invisible scouts from another room. Even the drow ranger who is always about ten paces away from the fight got hurt. The paladin used both of his dailies. We ended the fight when the remaining scout went invisible and ran to the next structure to warn them of us. We finished the session minus a couple of dailies and with the swordmage having a single healing surge left, knowing that the next fight would be large and they'd be waiting for us.
DUN DUN DUN!
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