In the previous session the group came to Blingdenstone, a deep gnome city that had been ravaged by war with the drows, and the deep gnomes were just retaking possession of. We left the group in a negotiation with deep gnome wererats, who told the group about the Pudding King, a crazy deep gnome who had somehow acquired control over slimes and oozes, and was gathering them for an attack on the city. So the group wanted to negotiate an alliance between the gnomes and the wererats against the Pudding King. On the way back to the gnome leaders they encountered an ooze incursion by two gelatinous cubes on the gnome market place. Mog'burz rescued a gnome guard who had been caught in the cube. Surina did good damage with her fireball, but also fried the clothing stand of a gnome merchant, who wasn't happy.

They arranged the meeting between the gnome leaders and the wererat leader, and an alliance was formed. The battle plan foresees that the combined gnome and wererat troops will attack oozes from the front, while the group would sneak in from the back and tackle the Pudding King. However that required the group to first clear their way to another abandoned quarter of the city, in which Ogremoch's Bane was living, a malevolent elemental spirit that drove earth elementals crazy. So the group went there, got attacked by two gargoyles and an earth elemental, and Nyx the druid cast Conjure Minor Elementals. However Ogremoch's Bane drove the summoned gargoyle crazy too, and so he attacked the group instead of helping them. Next the group followed a frightened gnome ghost into his house, finding his remains (that they were on a quest on to recover) and some treasure under his bed.

From there they moved west towards a cave full of quartz crystals. A gnome statue stood in the middle, holding a crystal before his eyes. The group figured out that there was a medusa around, but didn't grasp the significance of the crystals. Only Mog'burz took a crystal with him. Fighting the medusa meant either fighting completely blind, or having to do a DC 14 constitution save every round to not get petrified. Fenn the ranger was the first who rolled the saving throw and rolled a 1, instantly turning her into stone. The others mostly fought blind, until with a bit of prompting Mog'burz used his crystal as a sort of lens, giving him advantage on his saving throws against petrification. Surina fired fireballs and lightning bolts from behind, some completely missing the medusa but damaging her group members; she did more damage to them than the medusa did. Once the medusa was killed, Mog'burz had the idea to cut off her head and use it to de-petrify Fenn. While that wasn't foreseen in the rules, I allowed Fenn another saving throw at disadvantage, and this time she rolled two natural 20s and turned back to flesh. The same way they also de-petrified the gnome, who warned them of another cave full of 30 petrified drow and Ogremoch's Bane.

The group rested so that Arkoy the cleric could learn Banishment. They then fought 6 of the drow statues, who had been animated by Ogremoch's Bane, before the spirit appeared. Arkoy banished him and thus removed that danger. Finally the group re-conquered a temple of a gnomish earth god, which had been corrupted by Ogremoch's Bane. They fought 3 earth elementals in succession, which removed the corruption (but was a bit of a slog). While Nyx frequently fights in animal form, this time she never moved throughout the fight, just moving her Moonbeam as a action to damage the elementals every turn. From the temple a tunnel led to the Pudding King's court, but it was blocked by rubble. So the group returned to the gnomes, who provided them with magical dynamite to get through. We stopped the session at that point, and kept the grand finale of Blingdenstone for the next session.