After arriving at Valuriss' hovel the party found her awaiting them. Bratorn had come by and gave her directions to the drainage ditch after she declined to leave with him. The party set out immediately sticking to "well lit" areas, watching the sky for reavers and hiding from troops of undead soldiers. Eventually they found their way to the entrance. It was more a sewer pipe than a drainage ditch, about 6 feet around, filled to about 4 feet with filth and sludge. Gofin hopped on Mara's back to keep her head above the water. Lythandar provided light as the tunnel was very dark. Pretis and Mara moved forward slowly as the bottom of the drain was slippery and as the drain turned a corner Pretis saw two ghouls lurking in the shadows.
The battle was on as Pretis shifted next to the Ghoul. Gofin hopped onto the wall from Mara's back and Mara moved forward also. More ghouls appeared from the darkness climbing along the wall surface as they moved past Pretis. Melisana used rebuke undead to push several of the ghouls back and then they were bottled up by Pretis and Mara. Lythandar used Magic Missiles and Demin used his crossbow from range. Several ghouls were soon bloodied but they reacted to missed attacks with a Gut Maw attack. After some time the party found that a couple of the ghouls were no longer bloodied. The Gut Maw attack allowed adjacent party members an opportunity attack and Mara imposed ongoing damage. But more ghouls came up the drainage ditch, apparently attracted to the battle. Pretis was bloodied again but with Alhellara's help she recovered and soon the ghouls all lay "defeated" in the muck.
The party took a 5 minute rest and then proceeded with Valuriss out the sewer pipe. Pretis soon bumped into something relatively soft in the filth and picking it up they discovered the body of Bratorn, who apparently fell to the ghouls. Lythandar cast a Tensor's Disk and Gofin and Bratorn's body were ferried out of the tunnel which emerged outside the skull of Cavitius. The ground was covered with ash, as the party had seen along the flagstone pathway approaching Citadel Cavitius. It was discovered that Bratorn was wearing Deathcut Leather armor which was taken off his body. As the party stepped out onto the ash covered ground they immediately felt dizzy and nauseous. After about an hour of traveling some of the members felt even weaker, losing a healing surge. After another hour this effect happened again but soon after that the group met up with the flagstone roadway and hurried away from Cavitius eying the Giant Vultures circling overhead.
After a few more hours of travel the party stopped for the "evening" on the pathway and were not interrupted in their rest. In the "morning" they advanced up the pathway coming into the foothills where the ash desert was just replaced by ash covered hills. Suddenly the party saw the scene shifting around them. After this affect ended the party was in a forest glade, large trees surrounding them, with 4 seemingly dead bodies of elf maidens lying on the grass covered ground around a large stone stele. This looks nothing like the Burning Peaks and as several party members moved to investigate the bodies the elf maidens leapt up and attacked.
Alhellara tried to determine if the elf maiden in front of her was actually an elf and determined this was actually a Dryad. The battle was on and soon after the Dryad attack 4 Harpies flew out of the trees and screamed. Gofin teleported out of the midst of three enemies and Demin headed for the trees as the other members attacked.
Scorecard: The party earned 400 XP for the Ghouls in the sewer pipe and now have 16362 XP, standing 138 XP short of 9th level. I imagine that after the Dryad/Harpy encounter they will be at 9th level. After some negotiation Gofin took the Deathcut Leather Armor +2 and gave the Gaunlets of Remote Action to Demin.
Previous to this nights activities I was halving the Hit Point Values for the monsters but doubling their damage dice, so 2d6 became 4d6, etc. This was done to reduce the encounter time but it also seems to cause some trouble when critical hits are rolled as the damage can be extensive. Also it meant that even though the monsters might die sooner their encounter and Recharge powers did a lot of damage. So for the next few week I will try reducing the monsters HPs by 1/4 and increasing the damage expression, so 2d6 becomes 2d8, etc. We will see how this works in the next few sessions. I of course like the urgency the doubling of damage causes in the party since they know each encounter is going to be tough but other powers like Vulnerability/Resistance haven't changed and I'm not sure that the doubling method will work as the party moves to higher levels. I will continue to use 2-hit Minions, meaning it takes two hits or a critical to kill a Minion.
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