Session 07: Never Again

[0:00–0:20 — Whispered, distant]

Don’t move.

The web remembers.

Don’t look down.

The dark is listening.

One breath.
One thread.

One step—

fall.

[0:20–0:45 — Low voice, slow pulse]

Gold bones beneath the silver strands,
cold eyes above the flame.

Something waits where shadows hang.
Something knows our names.

Hold the line.
Hold the light.

Don’t let the darkness in.

[0:45–1:05 — Haunting refrain]

Never again...

Never again...

If one falls,
we follow.

If one is taken—

we go.

[1:05–1:22 — Building percussion]

The net flies.

The creature turns.

For one heartbeat
it cannot move.

The axe falls silent.

The orc steps forward.

One vow.

One chance.

Run.

[1:22–1:36 — Music drops away]

Two hundred feet.

Still holding on.

Silk above.

Fire below.

Then—

nothing.

[Whisper]

Roll.

[Silence]

Twenty.

[1:36–2:00 — Full orchestral / choir crescendo]

One breath!
One heartbeat!

One point is enough!

Never again!
Never again!

Through the web!
Through the dark!
Through the fire!
Through the fall!

If one of us goes under—

WE GO AFTER THEM ALL!

Never again!

Never again!

Let the stone remember—

WE CAME BACK
FROM THE FIRE!

[Cut to silence — whisper]

Still enough.

[Intro0:00–0:18 — whispered]Whisper Hold/ yourdistant breath.breath Feelteenage thefemale]

thread.[Low Somethingdrone]
knows[Single wherepiano note]
[Faint reverse textures]
[Almost no rhythm]

“I wanted to see how you tread.

One for hunger.
Two for mark.
Three small tugs
inside the dark.think”

[VerseSilence]

1][A second voice, farther away]

“You’re brilliant, Valemont, but undisciplined”

[0:18–0:38 — First Rise]

[Low strings begin pulsing]
[Soft heartbeat percussion]
[Distant choir enters on a single sustained vowel]
[Metallic creaks]
[Subtle tension textures]
[Bass slowly building underneath]

[0:38–0:50 — First Surge]

[Heavy cinematic hit]
[Strings rise sharply]
[Deep drums enter]
[Choir swells]

[Male Vocals from here on]

“I won’t let you fall alone.”

[The bridgevocal wascuts spunout abovecompletely]

the[0:50–1:08 deep,— whereMomentum]

blackness[Rhythmic hadlow nostrings]
floor,[Slow trailer percussion]
[Brass begins underneath]
[Increasing pulse]

“If you go down, 
I’m going too..”

[Music keeps climbing]

[1:08–1:17 — Sudden Drop]

[Everything cuts except low ambience]
[A distant impact]
[Silence]

“Still here.”

[1:17–1:36 — Second Build]

[Heartbeat returns faster]
[Cellos and everybrass strandbegin remembered feet
that never crossed before.

The goblins stopped. The silk went still.
No torch was raised to see.
Three little tremors crossed the web—
a hunter’s melody.rising]
[Pre-Chorus]Choir Dogrows not run.
Do not shout.
The path already knows your weight.

Do not turn.
Do not doubt.
Whatever comes has learned to wait.wider]
[Chorus]Percussion Threebuilds tugsin layers]

[Repeated whispers buried in the dark,mix]

three“Hold knockson…”
beneath“Hold the stone,
the web has marked the living
and the dark has called them home.

Three tugs in the dark,
no warning from the stars,
only silk beneath our footsteps
and the memory of scars.on…”

[Verse 2]

The ruined walls had shifted shape.
A breach was newly made.
The guides had passed three days before—
the stones had stood unchanged.

Then drow eyes opened in the gloom,
and quaggoths crossed the floor.
They called the fugitives their slaves
and reached to chain them once more.

Vorgrath answered axe with rage.
Iragon answered light.
Aeris bent the broken ground
and cast one from the height.

Dose drew death across his bow.
Nettle fed the flame.
Varang pulled the wounded back.
Edric cursed and aimed.

[Chorus]

Three tugs in the dark,
three knocks beneath the stone,
the web has marked the living
and the dark has called them home.

Three tugs in the dark,
the silk remembers all.
Every desperate step we take
is another hunter’s call.

[Verse 3]

At morning, two small beds lay cold.
No prints disturbed the dust.
Topsy gone, and Turvy too—
no trail the group could trust.

Only fur beside the bridge,
touched faintly by a spell,
and Sarith’s word that both were there
before the last foe fell.

Fargus woke with borrowed breath,
a bargain in his eyes:
a tomb ahead, a share of gold,
and roads beneath the lies.

[Bridge1:36–1:43 — quiet]Pre-Crescendo NoDrop]

tracks.[Music Noalmost cries.disappears]
No[One shapedeep betweenpulse]

the“Never strands.again.”

No[1:43–1:58 blood.— NoFinal sign.Crescendo]

Just[Full absenceorchestra]
where[Massive they’ddrums]
stand.[Low Perhapsbrass]
they[High fled.strings]
Perhaps[Choir]
they[Huge changed.cinematic Perhapsimpacts]

the“NEVER… darkAGAIN…”

drew[Second near.surge]

The“NEVER… worst thing in the Underdark
is what you cannot hear.AGAIN…”

[Final Chorus]enormous Three tugs in the dark,
three knocks beneath the stone,
the web has marked the living
and the dark has called them home.

Three tugs in the dark,
and still the party goes,
with hunger underneath their feet
and hunters no one knows.chord]

[Outro1:58–2:00 — whispered]Cut Holdto yourSilence]

breath.[Everything Leavestops]
no[One mark.quiet One.breath]

Two.“The Three.dice Somethingwanted movesme inside the dark.alive”

🪐 Campaign Arc

🧭 Overview

The session opened three years before the present, when seventeen-year-old Edric Faustin Valemont entered the shifting library of Blackthorn Academy in search of forbidden pre-Concordance spell theory. The library moved around its students, whispered from its shelves, extinguished lanterns without wind, and appeared to judge those who walked its impossible corridors. Edric considered it one of the few things at the academy that judged him correctly.Inside a hidden alcove, Edric met Nisa Thorn, an immaculate and unnervingly perceptive student who had already solved half of a two-person arcane ward. Nisa needed someone reckless enough to stabilise the ward’s shifting lattice while she maintained the logic sequence. Edric forced the runes into alignment, opening the sealed cabinet and revealing a scroll titled The Principles of Hollow Geometry. The supposedly forbidden text proved to be disappointingly basic. Nisa then admitted that the scroll had never been her true objective. She had arranged the test to observe how Edric thought. She called him brilliant but undisciplined, warned that his pursuit of power without understanding would eventually kill him, and left him with the unsettling realisation that he had met someone who might be smarter than he was. He hated her, respected her, and immediately wanted to defeat her at everything.

Back in the present, the party resumed its battle among the remains of the immense gold dragon. The treasure chest hidden among the bones was still a mimic, and several darkmantles descended from the ceiling to join the attack. Aeris brought down a column of Moonbeam that caught multiple darkmantles and obliterated one. Edric battered the mimic with Magic Missile, Iragon fought with his pact weapon and radiant power, and the party’s companions joined the chaotic defence. Varang finally burned the mimic apart with Sacred Flame, while Vorgrath sliced a darkmantle in half and watched it fall into the abyss.

The party searched the mimic’s remains and found fourteen gold pieces, two old short swords, two usable mimic teeth, and bones that appeared to belong to either a child or a halfling. The remains could not be identified more precisely. Aeris took the gold and teeth, while Edric claimed the two short swords. The group then followed Yuck Yuck and Spiderbait for roughly another three hours through the narrowing strands of the Silken Path.Near the bottom of the route, the party entered a vast cavern where layered webs hung above open lava. The upper web layer stood roughly two hundred feet over the molten rock, with a second layer about sixty feet below. Edric identified the right-hand bridge as dangerously thin and likely to break. Yuck Yuck and Spiderbait attempted it anyway, and the strand snapped beneath them. Both goblins crashed onto the lower layer and were hauled back up with Vorgrath’s rope. Aeris transformed into a giant wolf spider to traverse the silk more safely. Ront later fell and had to be recovered, while Prince Derendil and several others lost their footing during the wider crossing. Edric reacted with Feather Fall, slowing several party members and companions before the cavern could claim them.The difficult crossing distracted the group from a second danger. A spectator, an intellect devourer, and a mind flayer had been hiding against the nearby stalagmites approximately ten feet above the party’s level. The spectator opened the ambush with a Confusion Ray aimed at Prince Derendil, but the quaggoth resisted it. Aeris returned to his normal form as the fight began. Dose, controlled by the Dungeon Master in Kennith’s absence, made the decisive opening by throwing a net over the mind flayer. The creature failed to escape and became restrained, after which Dose marked it with Hunter’s Mark.

Vorgrath set his axe carefully on the webbing, entered a rage, and charged. With the restrained mind flayer unable to evade him, he used Bless and his inspiration to force the creature from its perch. Refusing to release it during the fall, Vorgrath spear-tackled the mind flayer through the web layers and shouted, “Never again.” Both plunged roughly two hundred feet into the lava. The mind flayer absorbed the greater part of the impact, but Vorgrath still suffered thirty-five damage and fell unconscious on top of it.The battle continued above. Prince Derendil leapt after Vorgrath while still protected by Feather Fall, enduring a spectator ray during the descent. Iragon drove his pact weapon and Divine Smite into the spectator. Aeris struck the intellect devourer with Shocking Grasp and used the spell’s disruption to retreat without giving it an opening, although Vorgrath remained far beyond the range of Healing Word. Varang maintained Bless and restored Spiderbait to full health. Eldeth survived the spectator’s Wounding Ray, while Sarith was briefly overcome by its Fear Ray. Edric finished the intellect devourer with a second-level Magic Missile and sent the final dart into the spectator.

At the lava’s edge, the mind flayer’s magical breastplate began dissolving. Vorgrath then rolled a natural twenty on his death saving throw, regained consciousness with one hit point, reignited his rage, and used his primal strength to leap from the lava onto solid ground. Prince Derendil landed nearby, dragged him farther from the heat, and howled with laughter at the insanity of the attack. The mind flayer’s breastplate eventually failed completely, and both the armour and the body disappeared into the lava.

After the battle, Aeris harvested all five of the spectator’s eyes: the four smaller eyestalk eyes and the large central eye. Edric tied the dead intellect devourer to his bag as a warning trophy, at least until the corpse began to smell. Dose’s net was lost permanently with the mind flayer. The party combined enough rope to reach Vorgrath and Prince Derendil, endured several awkward hauling attempts, and finally returned both to the upper web layer. Vorgrath’s axe was recovered before the group departed.

The survivors completed the Silken Path and climbed into a roughly fifty-foot-wide cave with one entrance and one exit. There they took a long rest and recovered from the battle. The party advanced to level four, and Vorgrath received the unanimous session MVP vote and inspiration. With the Silken Path finally behind them, Fargus Rumblefoot’s promised tomb became the next immediate destination on the longer road toward Gracklstugh.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Party Members

🎭 NPC Tracker

📍 Key Locations

• Blackthorn Academy Library: A shifting, judgemental labyrinth of moving shelves, whispering cases, impossible corridors, and self-extinguishing lanterns. Edric met Nisa Thorn inside a hidden alcove three years before the Lexicon Incident.
• The Gold Dragon Remains: The immense skeleton discovered in Session 6. The mimic battle resumed here, and darkmantles descended from the ceiling during the fight.
• The Lower Silken Path: The narrowing final stretch of web bridges travelled after the mimic was defeated.
• The Layered Lava-Web Cavern: A vast chamber with an upper web layer, a second layer roughly sixty feet below, and open lava roughly two hundred feet beneath the party.
• The Stalagmite Ambush: The spectator, intellect devourer, and mind flayer hid against raised stalagmites near the party’s path.
• The Lava Shore: A narrow area of solid ground beside the lava where Vorgrath regained consciousness and Prince Derendil pulled him away from the heat.
• The Cave Beyond the Silken Path: A roughly fifty-foot-wide chamber with one entrance and one exit, where the party finally completed the Silken Path and took a long rest.

📑 Session Highlights

• Edric met Nisa Thorn in a flashback set three years before the Lexicon Incident.
• Nisa used a supposedly forbidden scroll as bait to study Edric’s methods and warned him that his recklessness would eventually kill him.
• The party defeated the mimic and the darkmantles among the gold dragon remains.
• Aeris’s Moonbeam obliterated a darkmantle, while Varang’s Sacred Flame finished the mimic.
• The mimic contained fourteen gold pieces, two old short swords, two usable teeth, and unidentified child-or-halfling bones.
• Yuck Yuck and Spiderbait ignored the unstable route, broke through the web bridge, and fell sixty feet before being rescued.
• Edric used Feather Fall to save several party members and companions during the hazardous crossing.
• A spectator, intellect devourer, and mind flayer ambushed the party from the stalagmites.
• Dose restrained the mind flayer with a net and marked it with Hunter’s Mark.
• Vorgrath shouted “Never again” and spear-tackled the mind flayer two hundred feet into the lava.
• Prince Derendil jumped after Vorgrath while under Feather Fall and pulled him away from the lava.
• Edric killed the intellect devourer with Magic Missile and redirected the final dart into the spectator.
• Vorgrath rolled a natural twenty on his death saving throw, returned with one hit point, and escaped the lava.
• Aeris harvested all five spectator eyes; Edric claimed the intellect devourer’s corpse as a temporary trophy.
• The party completed the Silken Path, took a long rest, advanced to level four, and unanimously awarded Vorgrath the session MVP.

🎞️ Key Scenes

The Day Edric Met His Match

Seventeen-year-old Edric stood beside Nisa Thorn in a hidden Blackthorn Academy alcove while unstable runes twisted across a sealed cabinet. Nisa held the logic sequence steady and Edric forced the arcane lattice into alignment through intelligence, arrogance, and refusal to respect the possibility of an explosion. When the cabinet opened, the scroll inside proved worthless. Nisa stepped close and admitted that she had only wanted to see how he thought.

Gold Bones, Hungry Dark

Moonbeam poured through the darkness around the gold dragon’s ribs while darkmantles dropped from the ceiling and the mimic thrashed among the bones. Aeris’s pale light erased one of the creatures, and Varang’s Sacred Flame finally consumed the false chest. Nearby, Vorgrath split another darkmantle and watched both halves vanish into the abyss.

Sixty Feet Below

Edric warned that the right-hand strand looked ready to break. Yuck Yuck and Spiderbait crossed it anyway. The web snapped beneath them, and both goblins disappeared onto the lower layer with a scream. Vorgrath lowered his rope through the darkness while the party tried not to look at the lava waiting another hundred and forty feet below.

The Net

Dose threw a net across the gap and caught the hovering mind flayer. The creature twisted against the weighted cords but could not escape. For one brief moment it hung helpless above the lava, marked by Hunter’s Mark and held in place for the orc already setting his axe aside.

Never Again

Vorgrath charged the restrained mind flayer without his axe. As the web vanished beneath his feet, he locked both arms around the creature and refused to release it. “Never again,” he shouted, carrying the mind flayer through the layered webs and into the lava two hundred feet below.

One Hit Point

Vorgrath woke in the lava with a single hit point after a natural twenty death save. The mind flayer’s breastplate dissolved beneath him while Prince Derendil descended slowly through the darkness above. Vorgrath raged again, forced his body to move, and leapt onto the narrow shore. Derendil dragged him away from the heat and howled with laughter at the glorious stupidity of it all.

🧵 Ongoing Threads & Plot Hooks

• Nisa Thorn: Edric’s first encounter with Nisa established her as an intellectual rival who understood him almost immediately. Her later role and present whereabouts remain unknown.
• The Lexicon Incident: The flashback occurred three years before an event called the Lexicon Incident. No further details have yet been established.
• The Red Sashes: The goblins who murdered Randall and Aaron wore matching red sashes. Their organisation, employer, and motives remain unknown.
• “The Egg Is Ready”: The phrase spoken before the desert murders remains unexplained and may connect to Vorgrath’s past.
• Vorgrath’s Vow: Vorgrath’s cry of “Never again” directly echoed the promise he made after burying Randall and Aaron. The vow is now shaping his decisions under extreme pressure.
• Topsy and Turvy: The twins remain missing. The party found no new evidence of their route or condition.
• The Magical Fur: Edric still carries unidentified magical fur found near the twins’ disappearance. Its origin and relevance remain unconfirmed.
• Fargus’s Tomb: With the Silken Path completed, Fargus’s promised tomb is now the party’s immediate destination.
• The Potion of Invisibility: Dose still carries the potion given by Fargus, but its identity has not been independently verified.
• Drow Pursuit: The party remains a group of escaped prisoners travelling through hostile Underdark territory. The pursuit has not been conclusively ended.
• Reach Gracklstugh: Gracklstugh remains the wider destination after the detour to Fargus’s tomb.

🗺️ Quest Status

💰 Loot & Discoveries

Noteworthy Items

The spectator’s eyes: Aeris recovered four smaller eyestalk eyes and the large central eye. Their precise future use has not yet been established in play.

The intellect devourer trophy: Edric’s decision to tie the dead creature to his bag was intended as a warning to future intellect devourers. Whether future intellect devourers respect corpse-based signage remains untested.

💬 Memorable Moments

• Nisa Thorn: “I wanted to see how you think.”
• Nisa Thorn: “You’re brilliant, Valemont, but undisciplined.”
• Edric: “Are mimics edible?”
• Varang: “Anything’s edible if you’re brave enough.”
• Vorgrath: “Never again.”
• Prince Derendil: “You have a death wish, friend. That was glorious.”
• Vorgrath: “The dice wanted me alive.”

🏷️ Session Tags

Out of the Abyss, Session 7, Never Again, Blackthorn Academy, Nisa Thorn, Edric Faustin Valemont, Lexicon Incident, Principles of Hollow Geometry, Silken Path, gold dragon skeleton, mimic, darkmantles, Moonbeam, Feather Fall, spectator, intellect devourer, mind flayer, Dose’s net, Hunter’s Mark, lava, Vorgrath Kael, Prince Derendil, natural twenty, level four, Fargus’s tomb, Gracklstugh

🧰 Next Session Prep

Confirm all six player characters have been advanced to level four.

• Apply the long-rest recovery from the sheltered cave.
• Update Aeris’s inventory with fourteen gold pieces, two mimic teeth, four small spectator eyes, and one large spectator eye.
• Update Edric’s inventory with two old short swords and the intellect devourer corpse trophy, subject to its eventual disposal.
• Remove Dose’s net from inventory; it was permanently lost in the lava.
• Keep Vorgrath’s axe in his inventory; it was recovered before departure.
• Begin with Fargus leading the party toward the promised tomb.
• Carry forward the missing Topsy and Turvy, the unidentified magical fur, the unverified Potion of Invisibility, and the wider route toward Gracklstugh.
• Track Nisa Thorn and the Lexicon Incident as newly established parts of Edric’s personal history.

⏳ Cliffhanger

• The party finally escaped the Silken Path and rested inside a defensible cave with one entrance and one exit.
• Vorgrath survived a two-hundred-foot plunge into lava after awakening on a natural twenty death save with one hit point.
• The group reached level four and prepared to follow Fargus Rumblefoot toward the promised tomb.
• Topsy and Turvy remained missing, the magical fur remained unidentified, and Gracklstugh still lay somewhere ahead in the Underdark.