Murder Hobo Squad: A Lost Mine of Phandelver/Dragon of Icespire Peak & Beyond D&D 5E record (Beware Spoilers!)

DM: One of my players gifted me a year’s subscription to Roll20 so I spent a few hours adding dynamic lighting to the mine.  It worked well when it was just me running around, but once all the players logged in it ran so slow and sluggish and we gave up and switched back to the non dynamic version.  Anyone have any experience with this and knows what the issue is?  Is it just a thing where the more players it has to light for the exponentially slower it gets (There were 8 accounts logged in)?  Is the issue server/software side, or can one player having issues slow it down for the rest?

With their short rest over, the party headed out (DM: They were heading east last week and talking about heading further east, so I did my prep assuming they would keep heading east.  Guess where they went?  North West!) to the door to their immediate north.  They said they wanted to explore the worked stone areas and not the raw stone as the raw was most likely mine shafts and the living areas most likely contained more immediate threats.  Karson listened at the door and could hear some gnawing and scratching noises.  The party readied for a fight, kicked in the door and made short work of 4 emaciated Ghouls sucking what marrow they could from the bones of a skeleton in the middle of the room.  Karson listened at the next door and didn’t hear anything at first, but could hear the clank of heavy armour approaching, so they opened the door and sent out Ramond with sword and board to encounter any threat there.  He saw Devere who had got bored and gone the long way around while they were looting and listening.  Ramond gave him a stern telling off about ignoring party tactics and plans, and endangering everyone.  Devere went back with his head hung low.

Karson and Araloth went out scouting to the west, with the group staying just far enough behind them to keep in line of sight.  This section appeared to be a mass of interconnected corridors forming something of a simple maze.  They’d scoot forward 30 foot, with Karson in the lead and Araloth 10 foot behind him, and the rest keeping Araloth at the edges of their light/darkvision.  When Karson was 90ish feet down the corridor he turned around as he could hear angry scrams and the sounds of bare flesh slapping on stone behind him.  He could see the group bracing themselves against a charge from a large number of Ghouls coming down some stairs.  Seems that while the scouts could not see what was up the stairs, the ghouls could see the passing light from the party and wanted lunch.  The corridors created a bottleneck for the ghouls that the party had already filled meaning that only three ghouls at a time could engage the party, but there were a lot of them.  They ended up using a few AoE powers to burn them down so they kept the situation under control and the fight was over after three rounds.  They chose not to explore up the stairs for the moment, opting to stick to one level at a time.

They scouted through most of the mini maze and followed the corridors north through an unworked section to discover a still pool filling much of a cavern. The water was dark, revealing little of what might lie within. The shore of the pool consisted of a thin layer of broken shells from strange, pale mussels, and a fishy odour hung in the air. A set of steps climbed up to the east and a sluggish stream flowed out of the cave to the northeast through a low tunnel through the wall.  Karson slowly edged in to this room, staying cautiously away from the waters, afraid of what might lurk within.  They remembered an undead beholder rising out of the last dirty body of water they saw.  As he explored he remained unmolested so the group advanced up and headed towards the stairs.  Talindra had her owl familiar explore the watery tunnel.  There was only a 3 foot gap between the water and its roof so Nezhar wasn’t happy about this so she wouldn’t really go in there and Talindra didn’t force the issue.  She could see that the tunnel opened up after about 10 feet and the stream curved around out of sight to the east shortly after.

At the top of the stairs the corridor went north but there was a more interesting door immediately in front of them which they chose to investigate.  Karson listened closely and could hear some grumbles in what sounded like deep voiced goblinoid, although he couldn’t make out what they were saying through the door.  They lined up in formation and opened the door.  Old stone bunks lined the walls of this barracks, which was lit and heated by a glowing iron brazier in the middle of the room.   Across the room was another door, this one blocked by a barricade made from the remains of a wooden table.  Five Bugbears were sat around and surprised by the intrusion.  As the party ran in to engage Ramond shouted out, “Why on earth to they need a barricade?”  The bugbears were wearing good armour and their Morningstar’s hit hard so Devere put up a Bless spell.    Devere lined up with two Bugbears and unleashed his second Lightning Bolt from whatever power had entered him at the Lighthouse, hurting but not killing them (DM: I rolled nat 20 for both their saves!).  It was a slow and hard fight, with the Bugbears dealing their share of the damage and some poor rolls early on from the party, but they prevailed after a few rounds.

They looted the room, took stock of their wounds and did some healing, and decided the barricade should stay in place for now while they explored elsewhere.  They didn’t know if whatever was threatening the Bugbears would threaten them, or become an ally.  Having run in to a “dead end” (DM: And it getting late enough that they didn’t want to get locked in to a long encounter) they decided now was a good time to do a more thorough search of the areas they had passed through.  Talindra ritually cast Detect magic and did a run around with the group.  Something in the lake caught her eye.  She summoned an Unseen Servant and commanded it to bring up anything it could find while pointing towards the glow.  Over many trips it brought back shells, bones, shells, two platinum rings, stones, shells, more bones, stones, a magic wand, shells, stones, some muck, stones, stones, bones, stones, and Talindra dismissed her servant.

They went back in to the Bugbear Barracks and discussed having a short rest and taking the time to ritually identify the wand.  Araloth went up the northern corridor to stealthily peek around for any threats.  To the east of the end he could see a Bugbear and a Drow with their backs to him, with the sounds of stones being shifted within a crevasse in front of them.  He carefully retreated and informed the party.  They took their chances on a ritual identify but opted against a short rest at this time.  It was a Wand of Magic Missiles.  After a short discussion it was agreed that Ramond the Paladin should have it for all those annoying times when he finds himself spending 2+ rounds just running close enough to hit things with his sword.  He felt a little bad as he is already covered in magic items, but this does seem like the best use of the item.

Throughout all of this exploration they slowly noticed that as they head north, the regular tremors were getting slowly louder.  They could hear and feel them a little more, once every two minutes.

DM: We called it a night here.  It was approaching 11pm at this point and one of our players has an early start and two more had their internet go out.