DF Whiterock Session 20: The Outer Caverns of Set

Date: 

Basilsday, 26th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Ashe "GOAT" Maykum, Goblin mercenary druid (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Creon, pawnbroker

Egrk, caveman

Many other cave people

6 small chasm cephalopods

8 giant boring beetles

8 huge spiders

1 roper

Several unseen humans, including a female human fighter

Summoned manta rays, bat swarms, goats, boars, and warhorses

Vael suggested pushing the group's weekly delves into Arden Vul back a day, from Demmasday to Basilsday, to give an opportunity to shop at Gosterwick's Demmasday market, the biggest of the week.  Everyone agreed, but none of the peddlers at the market this week had anything very exciting for sale.  Vael did find some Delver's Webbing at Creon's Curios, and paid Creon to be notified of any new interesting items that came in before they went on the shop floor.

Michael was off in the woods somewhere, so the Right for Riches company hired the Grudge Brigade mercenary on call, the goblin druid GOAT.  GOAT brought along his recent invention, the Living Wheelbarrow, a wooden wheelbarrow containing enough living plant material that it could be affected by the Levitation spell.  He showed his creation to Vael, who immediately bought one.

The group set out early on Basilsday morning, confusing the gate guards who were used to seeing them every Demmasday.  They approached the waterfall without seeing anything of note, and took the small bridge over the Swift River about a mile south of the falls, to check out the west side of the cliffs and see if they could find Egrk's people.  After a bit of hiking they found a large cave at the base of a cliff, with a couple of primitively dressed warriors with spears standing guard outside.  After some rather unfriendly grunts, some more warriors came out of the cave, one of whom spoke a bit of Thorcin.  After a mention of Egrk's name, someone went to get Egrk.  Ioannes cast Gift of Tongues to enable fluent communication, and explained to Egrk that they were interested in trading for information.  Egrk talked to an older cave person and then said they needed metal weapons, metal tools and (after a female yell from inside the cave) some metal cooking pots.  The party said they'd bring metal stuff to trade next time, and asked if they could have any information now.  Since they had previously rescued him from being baboon chow, Egrk relented and pointed out a few spots on the cliff face.  He pointed at one spot halfway up the cliff and said that both the snake men and the lizard people came out of that one.  He pointed far across the waterfall and said the barking dogs came out of the entrance over there.  He then pointed back to the south and said the blue knights on big horses came from that way, and were jerks.

After the spell expired and communication became difficult again, the party waved goodbye and headed back east toward the waterfall.  Since they had GOAT along, they decided to go behind the waterfall again.  Vael first used Shape Earth to make a hole in the side of the cliff for the wheelbarrow and closed it up again.  GOAT summoned two large manta rays to tow people, and cast Swim and Breathe Water on someone, while Vael had a Ring of Free Action that let him move through water rapidly.  Using the combination of manta rays and magic, the group ran or swam or were towed through the tunnels behind the waterfall, emerging in the grotto.  After a pause for breath, they submerged again and went up some stairs to the north into the dry halls.

Vallium wanted to check out some stairs to the west.  GOAT dismissed the manta rays and summoned some goats and boars and bats, and then the whole group went west to a broken door.  Vallium pulled out his platinum token of Arden and inserted it into a slot next to the broken door, which didn't have any visible effect because the door was already smashed.  They proceeded past a statue of Arden with huge hammers in both hands, surrounded by smashed (and previously looted) corpses.  The statue did not animate.  They went out a door to the north, then started up the stairway up that they had previously found but not explored.

Vael cast Levitation on himself, and everyone else started trudging up the stairs.  When the stairs finally ended after about 700 feet, they emerged into a large circular room that was once tiled in blue and was currently partially tiled in blue and full of fallen blue tiles on the floor.  There was a large magical octagonal pillar in the center of the room, with bas reliefs carved on most of the sides:

• A handsome man with a neat beard, with empty spherical eye sockets
• A stereotypically Archontean looking middle aged woman, with large empty disc-shaped eye sockets
• A monstrous-looking creature that resembled Gog, with an open oval-shaped mouth
• A caricature of a priest of Thoth, with small empty disc-shaped eye sockets
• A goblin with a large hole where its missing nose should be

Vallium had some small gold grooved discs that he hoped might match one of the holes, but they did not.  Everyone went through their small items looking for anything that was an obvious match, but nobody had anything that looked like an obviously good fit.  Someone suggested bringing different kinds of coins and gems next time.

After abandoning the pillar, they explored west but hit a dead-end caved in passage.  They then went south and heard some giant rats scampering ahead.  The cave to the south had a couple of smaller natural pillars, one with some stuff on top.  Vael levitated up and looked at some spikes and ropes and poles without taking them, then noticed and took a healing scroll.  They headed northwest through more rough passages and saw a worked floor to the north.  There was some kind of magical force field blocking entrance to a room to the west, so Vael used Shape Earth to dig a small hole around it, and GOAT went in.  He saw a large basket, a bunch of rope, and a few crates of weapons with Imperial seals.  He opened the crates and found some shortswords, spears, and knives, all of which the group took.  Vael decided to sabotage the ropes, attempting to disguise the damage so that some Set cultist might find out about it by the rope snapping at an inconvenient moment.

Vael sealed up the ends of the tunnel into the storage room, and then the group continued north and saw two statues flanking some stairs leading up and north.  Ioannes and Uvash agreed the statues were Set.  Vallium thought the exit to the cliff might be that way, but Vael (who claimed to have Absolute Direction) said the exit would be to the south.   So rather than going up the stairs, they turned around and went back south, then west.  They found a skeleton with two magic wands, one of them a broken Settite Was stick and the other unknown.  They took both for later investigation and then went south to a chasm, deeper than their Continual Light illiminated.  With Levitation still on, Vael flew out into the chasm to investigate, but saw several small Chasm Cephalopods flying up from below to greet him.  He yelled a warning and flew back north to the others.  A short fight ensued, with the cephaolopods losing, but taking some bat swarms with them.

Deciding that exploring the small chasm solo wasn't the safest idea, they doubled back and returned to the room where they'd found the gear on top of the pillar.  From there they headed south, and saw some bright natural light ahead.  They also spotted a small passage heading east.  They went to the exit and saw a chest containing another large basket along with ropes, pulleys, and red signal lanterns.  They looked out to get an idea of where they were on the cliff face, then Vael decided to sabotage some more ropes.

Heading back into the cave, the group went east down a short passage, filled with slippery purple fungus.  GOAT used his naturalist skills and an Identify Plant spell to ascertain that this was indeed slippery purple fungus, with Mithric name Fungus Slippius Violetus, edible but with no known medicinal uses.  They sat down to rest, but their rest was quickly interrupted by a giant beetle coming to investigate.  It was hungry enough to attack, so a fight broke out.  Seven more beetles joined the fight, but the beetles lost.  There was some discussion of trying to fashion armor out of beetle carapace, so Vallium tried removing some large chunks from one beetle corpse, but didn't do a very neat job of it and ended up with a bunch of small chunks.  GOAT looked closely at the beetles to see if they were natural animals that he might be able to summon in the future, but they were unnatural.

They spotted a hole in the floor, too deep to see the bottom.  Vael dropped a glowing rock into the hole and saw a finished floor about 35' below, covered with more purple fungus.  A minute later, another large beetle appeared to investigate the glowing stone.  They decided not to go down into the hole and face more beetles.  Vael decided they weren't finding treasure fast enough, so he cast Seek Earth looking for platinum, and thought there was some about 15 yards to the northeast.

After some rest, they headed east through some more caves, and GOAT spotted a huge spider staring at him with too many eyes.  As the goblin jumped back, the spider and several of its friends advanced.  Another fight ensued, though the spiders were squisher than the beetles so it didn't last as long.  Uvash got bitten at one point, but fortunately the mandibles did not penetrate his armor, so his poison resistance was not tested.  When all the spiders were dead, GOAT checked to see if the spiders were summonable animals, and was again disappointed to find that they were unnatural.

Vallium, who had borrowed the Ring of Free Action from Vael at some point, waded through the spider webs looking for treasure, and found several corpses (3 human and 3 lizardfolk) wrapped up in webs.  He passed the bodies out to the others for investigation and kept sifting through the webs.  The total take was a few coins, a small soapstone idol, some red Set scale armor, a shortsword, and a letter about someone named Theskelon, with an addendum in different handwriting about his tomb.

After resting, they headed north then west and found a large cavern, with a lot of stalactites and stalagmites, a magical mosaic on one wall depicting a bridge, and a few fresh corpses, one of them half eaten.  While investigating, Vallium felt some sticky ropes hitting him from above, then a large creature dropping and biting him.  The bite was vicious, but Vallium's thick scale armor protected him enough that he was still able to fight back.  The ropes didn't stick because of the Ring of Free Action.  Vallium yelled a warning, and everyone else eventually focused and joined the fight.  The roper attempted to rope Vallum a couple more times before being certain that he was unnaturally slippery and unropeable.  By then Vallium had stabbed it a couple of times, and the roper decided to leave and find an easier lunch.  Vael cast Great Haste on Vallium, enabling him to chase down the roper.  Meanwhile, GOAT summoned a heavy warhorse and sent it stampeding into the monster.  The roper was knocked down and stunned, just in time for Vallium to catch up and stab it several times.  The roper killed the summoned horse, so GOAT summoned another one, but it wasn't needed, as Vallium killed the roper before the cavalry arrived.

Vael thought there were about where the platinum should be, but didn't see any, so he cast Seek Earth again, which said the platinum was inside the roper corpse.  At that point they dissected the beast, and found one huge ancient octagonal platinum coin, along with several gems and a magic ring.  While Vallium and Vael rested, the rest of the group kept chopping up the roper hoping for more treasure, but eventually gave up.

There was a worked passage heading west, blocked by a cave-in.  Vael decided to use Shape Earth to dig a tunnel through the cave-in.  As the tunnel broke through, they heard voices from the other side, yelling for Gordy and Quade to stand guard, and a lot of noise.  Not wanting to get ambushed, Vael made a large Concussion missile and threw it through the hole, and then GOAT sent in a couple of bat swarms to clean up.  A few minutes later, they went through the hole, and found one freshly dead female fighter (with bleeding ears and a fatal number of bat bites) and a lot of dead bats.  There was an interesting (but immovable) frieze of a Settite scene on one wall, and a pile of heavy loot.  The rest of whoever had been there were gone.  They looted the body, and then went through the pile of stuff to find several packs of bulk food, a couple of casks of brandy, a few pelts (one of them surprisingly enchanted!) and a heavy carpet.

They grabbed all the loot and got ready to head back to Gosterwick.  Leaving the room to the west, Vallium spotted a tripwire on the floor, and did not trigger it.  Given a choice between just taking the basket down or climbing down 700' of stairs then going underwater, they decided to take the basket.  However, Vael had sabotaged the ropes, so they first had to repair the ropes.  Once they thought the ropes were sturdy enough, they lowered two people at a time down in the basket, and finally Vael levitated himself down the cliff face.  They dug the wheelbarrow back out of the cliff and used it to bring the pile of loot back home.

GM's Comments:

Vael started the session wearing the Ring of Free Action, but he passed it to Vallium when they reached the slippery purple fungus (because Vael was Levitating so wasn't worried about bad footing).  Vallium was very lucky he was wearing that ring when the roper randomly chose him as the victim, because all the binding rope attacks automatically failed.

Other than the roper, nothing else surprised the party despite their noise and bright lights.  The saw both the beetles and spiders in time to defend themselves, and they were the ones who dug through a caved-in wall, scared whoever was on the other side, and killed their rear guard.

I was amused when they sabotaged both the basket and backup basket, and then decided the basket was the best way home.  Planning!  However, knowing that something is sabotaged and exactly how is a good first step to repairing the damage, so nobody fell.  (They were one critical failure away from the repair failing, but they thought of that possibility and sent the GOAT, who had Levitate, first.)

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration:  20 new locations, good for 2 XP.
• Loot: A decent amount but nothing amazing, awaiting final decisions but probably 1 XP.
• Achievements: 0
• Total: 3 XP

Next week:

I have no idea where they are going, and neither do they.   They discuss it a bit during the week, make no clear plan, and then wing it at the last minute.

At this point they've found the following areas:

• Surface Ruins of Arden Vul
• Basement (they think they have probably fully explored this)
• Well of Light
• Howling Caves
• Halls of Thoth
• Great Cavern
• Caves presumably leading to the Forum of Set
• Gog's Cave
• Bottom of Privy Shaft
• Caves behind the waterfall

They also have the Scorpion Teleporter, which they have used 3 times and ended up in 3 places.

DF Whiterock Session 19: The Pool of Donkey Ears

Date: 

Demmasday, 18th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ethereum "Coinbase" Thuringwador, Elf Illusionist (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Several of Kronos's Thorcin guards

Kronos, innkeeper at the Sign of the Broken Head

Lankios, ancient Archontean hermit

Zombie porter

Many stirges

Gray ooze

4 Baboon skeletons

Human skeleton

Several halfling toll collecting gangsters

Ibis-headed guardian of Thoth

Animated statues of Sekhmet and Osiris

Lion construct

Ioannes was not available, so the group visited the Grudge Brigade to hire a mercenary.  The mercenary on call was the annoying elf Coinbase, who immediately started trying to sell everyone on his new illusion-based tactical assistance system and also on the GOAT's new living (and thus able to be Levitated) wheelbarrow, available for sale soon.  As part of his continuing attempt to make friends and influence people, Vallium bought another (regular) wheelbarrow load of food.

When they reached the Long Stair up to the ruins of Arden Vul, Vael and Coinbase decided to Levitate themselves up, while the others roped themselves together and started hiking.  The ropes were a good idea, as Uvash slipped and went right over the edge, but Vallium and Michael yanked him back up.

They pushed the wheelbarrow all the way to the north end of the ruins, where Kronos's guards occupying the northern gate towers hailed them and engaged them in a brief conversation.  Nobody had any significant news to share, so they headed west to the Broken Head.  Kronos himself was outside supervising his staff, and Vallium sold him half of his wheelbarrow of provisions at cost.  Kronos was happy to make the deal and asked if anyone wanted to come into the inn for a drink, but Vael said that they didn't want to drink and delve but might come back later.

The group doubled back east and south near the Pyramid of Thoth, and Vallium showed them the stairs leading down into a nearby ruin.  They left their wheelbarrow by the stairs, and Vallium took everyone north to the room with the altar that had a secret compartment that he had not figured out how to open.  Vallium showed them where the panel was, and how to trigger a poison needle trap.  He expected Vael to magic it open, but instead Vael just figured out the trick and hit the panel in the right spot.  Inside was a bag containing a bunch of small red gems and a small magical silver feather token.

Vallium then took the group east to Lankios's room, but the hermit was not home.  Vallium left a bunch of food by the old man's pungent stew pot, and Vael wrote Lankios a note.  Next Vallium took them west to the room with the zombie porter, warned everyone that there was a friendly zombie inside and not to kill it, and then opened the door.  The zombie once again slowly walked right up to Vallium, and Vallium demonstrated putting a backpack on the porter and then having the porter slowly follow him around wearing it.  They didn't really need the porter, though, so Vallium took his backpack back and closed the porter in the room again.

Next they decided how to deal with the room full of stirges.  Michael had a serpent amulet to protect him from fire, and Vallium had a fire resistance potion, so the plan was to create a bunch of fire and have them fight the stirges from within it, while Vael strategically moved the flames around to torch stirges.  This plan worked pretty well; Vallium and Michael killed a few stirges, Vael's magical fire burned a couple more, and the rest fled up a chimney.  Vael then used Shape Earth to fuse the chimney shut so the stirges couldn't return to the room.  The group then tore the stirge nest apart, finding some coins, some magic incense, a small magic bronze baton, and some adventurer's diary.  Once all the loot was removed, Vael burned the stirge nest.

There were several stone vats in the room to the south, which had been left intact last time.  Vael was suspicious that something might be hidden in one of them, so he had Michael tip the three full vats over, so they could thoroughly search them.  No treasure was found, but the vat full of something spoiled made the whole room stink, to the point where Vael needed to cast Purify Air.

There were two unexplored doors to the west.  One just led to a hallway, and the group walked around a bit completing their map.  Another led to a privy, with the smelly privy shaft going deeper than the range of their Continual Light, and unexpectedly containing ladder rungs.  Nobody felt like climbing down a ladder, but Vael cast Wizard Eye and put a dim Continual Light on it, then sent the Eye down to scout.  The shaft went down about 500 feet.  At the bottom was a natural cavern, with exits east and west, and a paved area to the south containing a sarcophagus and four burned corpses.  One of the corpses had what appeared to be magical mail armor, along with a longsword and a metal shield.

That was enough treasure that they couldn't just leave it, so they discussed whether it would be better to cast Levitation on both Vael and Coinbase, or Flight on Michael or Vallium.  (Vael could not easily maintain Flight on multiple people at once.)  Michael volunteered, so he dropped his backpack and shield to reduce his load, and Vael cast Flight on him.  Michael zoomed down the shaft, and noticed a ring tied to a ladder rung near the top.  Not wanting to waste spell duration, he yelled to the others about the ring and resumed flying down, while Coinbase Levitated down a few feet to grab the ring.  When Michael got to the bottom he looked around a bit, then headed to the corpses to take their stuff.  He quickly grabbed the sword and shield and was partway through removing the mail armor when he saw a gray ooze creeping along the ceiling to attempt to drop on his head.  Michael was much faster than the ooze, so rather than risking a solo fight, he flew around it to the far end of the cavern, waited for it to come get him, then flew back around it to the corpses and finished taking the mail, then flew back around it again and up the privy shaft.

While Vael rested to recover from maintaining Flight, a couple of the others went to fetch the wheelbarrow, put most of the loot in it, and stash it behind a door where other adventurers were unlikely to find it.  Vael cast Seek Earth for gold, and sensed some gold about 15 yards south.  Everyone searched for secret doors on the southern wall, and eventually found one.  It was locked.  Vael found the keyhole but nobody had a key that fit, so he Lockmastered it open.  Vallium opened the door, into a room with a human skeleton with an axe and 4 baboon skeletons.  The skeletons attacked, a brief fight ensued, and the adventurers won, with a shield rush from Coinbase into the human skeleton's back knocking it down and making it stop dodging so effectively, so Vallium and Michael could chop it up.

The room didn't contain the expected gold, so everyone searched for secret doors again.  This time, the secret door was unlocked, and behind it was a small room with a bunch of golden altarware, a small coffer full of silver coins, and a small ivory and ebony statue of Thoth.  They took all the treasure and added it to the pile in their wheelbarrow.  Vael tried another Seek Earth looking for gold, and another one looking for platinum, and a Seek Magic, but all the nearest treasures appeared to be up on the surface or another level, so they decided this one was done.  Vael was unhappy with his empty map, though, so he had the others guard him while he circled the level mapping.  When they reached the pool of sludge, he filled a vial with a sample to check out in the alchemy lab back at the Arcane Practitioners' Club in Gosterwick.

Finally done mapping the basement, the group went north to the spiral stairs down, then down the stairs to the halfling level, then through the illusory wall.  Vallium led the group south through the remnants of the one-way door that he and Thronebreaker had destroyed, then east through the room where they had killed a dust elemental, to a previously unexplored door.  Everyone listened at it, then they opened it and found a room bisected by the Great Chasm, with a narrow bridge crossing it.  Vael and Coinbase Levitated over, while the others carefully crossed the bridge.  To the south was a halfling guard post overlooking the chasm, and they heard the sounds of halflings yelling about their lights and calling more guards.  In the center of the room was a large statue of Thoth in baboon form, with both arms on pins.  There was a door on the north wall and two doors on the east wall, and listening revealed no sound behind any of them.  Someone tried one of the doors, but it was locked, and Vael thought something on the door looked magic.  At that point Vael started manipulating the statue arms into various combinations of positions.  A couple of positions seemed to cause noises far away, or maybe that was just the halflings.  Another position caused a secret door on the east wall to open, and an angry ibis-headed construct of Thoth came out to attack.  The fight was five on one, though, so the construct didn't last very long.  After it was dispatched the group searched the small secret room it had come out of, but found nothing.

Vael went back to playing with the statue arms, and eventually managed to open one of the eastern doors.  They went east down a hallway, then north into a room with three sarcophagi.  Uvash tried a spell to detect undead, and didn't find any.  Vallium took the lid off a sarcophagus, and a bunch of darts flew out at him.  One was directly on target, but his amulet of missile protection caused the dart to curve around him.  Inside the sarcophagus was a mummy.  They tore the wrappings open to find some jade jewelry and a garnet gem.  Vallium repeated the process with the other two sarcophagi, with similar results.  Vael carefully scooped up all the darts into a pouch, hoping whatever black substance they were covered with was worth something.

They continued down the passage to the east and found a huge room to the north, containing 6 large statues and one huge statue.  Uvash identified all seven statues for the group: Sekhmet, Set, and Anubis down the right side; Osiris, Horus, and Isis on the left, and a much bigger statue of Thoth in the north center.  A few minutes after everyone came in, the statues of Sekhmet and Osiris moved into the center of the room and started smashing each other.  The Thoth statue yelled "Halt" in Mithric (which only Uvash spoke, and not well) and both statues froze, with Osiris dropping his (human-sized, magical-looking) flail.  Thoth then yelled something like "a smart one must choose" in Mithric.  Vael could not resist, and picked up the flail.  At that point the lion on top of Sekhmet's head animated into a separate construct and attacked Vael, while the rest of the group found themselves completely frozen in place and unable to act.  The lion construct tried to bite Vael, and in response he Blinked 3 yards straight up, out of its reach.  After making sure there was no way the statue could reach him, he then calmly started dropping acid, Alchemist's Fire, and small Concussion spells onto the statue until it was destroyed.  As the unfair fight finished, the Thoth statue yelled "Halt" again, and everyone unfroze.  Vael felt some kind of divine blessing make him slightly tougher, and kept the flail.

The group continued east, and saw some orange Continual Light coming from a room to the south, containing a fountain.  Breaking their usual directional rules, they headed for the light.  The fountain appeared magical.  Uvash took a sip, and his ears transformed into donkey ears.  This did not appear to affect his hearing either way; he just looked weird.  (Though he had a chain coif, so he really only looked weird if he took it off.)  The rest of the group decided not to take a drink.

Everyone went west from the fountain, then south into a room with 3 more sarcophagi and a bunch of small holes in the floor.  Everyone except Vallium and Uvash stepped out of the room.  Uvash tried to detect undead, and didn't find any.  Vallium opened a sarcophagus lid.  A bunch of spears came out of the floor, stabbing the armored legs and feet of both of them.  Fortunately, none of the spears managed to penetrate their armor.  Uvash left the room, and Vallium climbed up on top of the sarcophagus, out of spear reach, to continue his looting.  The first sarcophagus contained another mummy, along with some rusty mail and a shield.  Vallium unwrapped the mummy to find more jade jewelry.  He repeated the process with the other two sarcophagi, avoiding the spear holes, and got some more jewelry as well as a couple of maces, a scroll, and a small pouch of silver coins.

Judging that they had enough treasure for the day, the group carefully traced their steps back over the chasm bridge, through the illusory wall, up the spiral stairs, and retrieved their wheelbarrow.  They then headed up to the surface ruins of Arden Vul, south to the Long Stair, down the cliff face, and back to Gosterwick.  Their luck held on the hot summer day, and nothing attacked them on the way home.

GM's Notes:

Arden Vul's got 1100 pages of intricate level design with complicated factions and deep history, but it's also got magic pools that can give you donkey ears, like some TSR adventure from 1978 written under the influence of Thoth-knows-what.  Fantastic.

I thought Vael was the PC least suited to the solo combat scenario against Thoth's pet lion statue, but he demonstrated that if you can fly, your opponent can't reach you or run away, and you have any ranged attacks with lots of ammo, you will eventually win.  No style points, but he won.  Also, "up" is a valid direction for Blink if the ceiling is high enough, and this is particularly useful if you have Levitation on.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 9 new locations,  1 XP
• Loot: Some coins and gems and jewels and gold and silver.  A few minor magic items.  The most valuable thing by far was the fine mail armor that Michael dragged up from beneath the privy.  2 XP
• Achievements: None
• Total: 3 XP each.  Vael also got 1 extra HP for the statue fight.

Next Week:

Maybe they'll keep exploring this level and see if anyone else can get donkey ears.  Maybe they'll go back up to the baboon level and look for the Library of Thoth.  Maybe they'll go back down the privy.  I have no real idea at this point, and I suspect the players don't either.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 18: Back Down the Well of Light

Date:

 

Demmasday, 11th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Several large albino baboons

Yrsko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon cook

Brokenneck and 2 other goblin prisoner / cooks

Marco, one-armed beastman prisoner

Ketil, Wiskin ranger prisoner

Egrk, caveman prisoner

Shrieker mushroom

2 small spotted mushroom people

Stamelis, enchanted head of a Thothian librarian

Undead librarian

Vael returned from Newmarket, after doing some shopping and failing to meet the wizard in the Tower of the Ape.  He rounded up Michael, Uvash, and Ioannes for a trip back to the ruins of Arden Vul.  After ascending the Long Stair (with 3 of them roped together and Vael Levitating) they decided to go down the Well of Light.  Vael first cast Darkness above the Well to make the mirrored shaft less blindingly bright inside, then cast Flight on Michael, who carried each of the others down the Well in turn.

The mirror at the bottom of the well was once again covered in debris and baboon feces.  The group spent a few minutes cleaning it off, then went east then southwest and explored a small room with some benches and and inscription on the wall that said "Let the Faithful Render Honor and Glory to the Light Which Reveals All” in Mithric.  Ioannes poked at a magical-looking marble circle on the floor with his axe, then stood on it, but nothing interesting happened.

The group continued southwest, then went east down a narrow passage that ended in two doors.  They listened at both doors, and heard low mumbling behind one and hooting behind the other.  Vael and Ioannes cast Blur and Shield on Michael, and they opened the northern door.  Behind it was a large room containing 4 of the large albino baboons, who immediately charged at the intruders.  Michael and Uvash fought them in the doorway, while Vael cast Grease and Smoke in front of the other door.

While Michael crippled both arms of a baboon, the other door opened and a giant 4-armed baboon came running out, then slipped and fell on the grease.  Michael backed up to fight the big one while it was down, while Uvash and Ioannes continued fighting the smaller baboons.  Michael landed several solid blows on the huge one while it struggled to get up, while Uvash killed one of the smaller baboons.  Two of the baboons ran away, but not before one of them landed a crippling blow on Ioannes' right arm.  The big one, almost dead, tried to surrender, but then passed out.  After waiting a few minutes for him to get up, the group decided to just kill him, along with another unconscious baboon.  Uvash cast Major Healing on Ioannes, and his arm fortunately started working again.

Worried the fleeing baboons might bring friends, they explored the northern room, which appeared to be a dining room with only one table.  They spotted a goblin peeking though a doorway to the east.  Continuing to the east, they found a kitchen, with 3 scared goblins who appeared to be cooks.  Chained to the walls were two humans and a one-armed dog-headed beastman.  One of the goblins spoke a bit of Archontean, and said that his name was Brokenneck and he and his companions had been captured and enslaved by the baboons.  One of the humans chained to the wall was Ketil, a ranger with a strong Wiskin accent.  The other was Egrk, who didn't speak any Archontean.   The beastman was Marco, whose missing arm had been used as an ingredient in one of Yrsko the giant 4-armed baboon chef's meals.  Ioannes cast Gift of Tongues to enable communication with Egrk, and ascertained that he lived in a cave west of the waterfall and had been taken by a nocturnal raiding party of baboons.  The others had similar stories.  Also in the kitchen were a fireplace with a chimney heading up, and a large magical cauldron.  Ioannes asked the goblins about the cauldron, and they explained that if you said one word it got hot and if you said a different word it got cold.

Michael tried breaking Ketil's chains, but they were too strong to snap without heavy tools.  Vael asked Brokenneck if he had the keys, and the goblin replied that Yrsko the big baboon cook had them.  

The group went into the room to the south, which appeared to be the big baboon's bedroom, and contained a makeshift bed, a chest, and a bookshelf.  Vael cautiously Apportated the chest open, and inside were a few chef's hats, a dirty apron, a nice quality knife, and some keys.  There were also a couple of cookbooks on a bookshelf, one focused on mushroom dishes, the other on general Archontean cuisine.  Vael grabbed the knife, books, and keys.  Returning to the kitchen, they unlocked all the prisoners.  They told them they would get them all out, and asked the goblins to carry the cauldron.

Continuing south from Yrsko's room, they saw closed doors to the south and east.  They listened to both and didn't hear anything.  They first went south, and found a room with paintings of a jungle scene with baboons on the wall.  To the south was a mulch pit full of mushrooms.  As they approached, one of the mushrooms started shrieking.  Ioannes stepped forward to silence it.  This was effective, but offended a couple of small mushroom people who were hiding in the mulch pit.  Both attacked Ioannes, the first ineffectively, the second landing a pretty good punch.  This drew the attention of Michael and Uvash, who finished off both of the mushroom men.

On the east side of the room was a large bust of a middle-aged Archontean man, which appeared magical.  Vael tried talking to the statue, and he surprisingly responded.  He said his name was Stamelis and he had been a Librarian of Thoth.  Vael and Ioannes asked Stamelis a lot of questions, and he verified that the Library of Thoth was just to the west of here, that this had been Gerrilad's room, that Gerrilad hasn't been here for a couple of weeks, and that Gerrilad was not an adherent of Thoth, but followed some odd nature religion and seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with baboons.  Vael wanted to take the statue with them, but it was hundreds of pounds, so they left it for now, but told Stamelis that they would return.

They checked the door to the north, and found a bedroom, with nobody home.  There was a chest, which Vael again used Apportation to open.  Inside was a small silver mirror and some platinum coins, which Vael took.

Heading west, the large group went through a door, saw some double doors to the south, but continued west through a single door into a cobwebby corridor.  Vael was suspicious of spiders, but didn't see any.  Michael eventually bravely walked right through the webs toward a door on the north wall, but as he approached it a previously unseen glyph on the floor glowed purple, and Michael ran away to the east.  Vael gave Michael a few minutes to get it together, then Levitated over to the glyph.  It went off even though he didn't touch it, but Vael was able to override the magical fear and open the door.

The room beyond the door contained an old rotted bed with a rotted corpse in it, and a pedestal holding a large ball of arcanum.  There were also some shelves, but Vael was drawn to the arcanum and started investigating it.  He decided to cast Analyze Magic, but when he touched the globe of arcanum, the body rose from the best and ran over to stop him.  Vael dropped his backpack and retreated while yelling for help.  Michael responded, and this time managed to pass the fear glyph.  Michael, Uvash, and Ioannes chopped up the undead creature.  Once it was down, Ioannes went back in the hallway and gathered up their rescued prisoners and cast Bravery on all of them, then herded them all past the glyph into the room.

Vael resumed casting the Analyze Magic spell that had been interrupted, but after about ten minutes the thoroughly dismembered corpse of an undead librarian started twitching again.  Vael again suspended his spell and cast Create Fire on the corpse, incinerating it.  That problem eliminated, he went back to analyzing the globe.  After about an hour, he noted that the arcanum could be used to recharge magic items, and had other powers.

Not wanting to spend all day analyzing the arcanum in this dangerous environment, the group decided to escape from the Halls and analyze the globe back at the Arcane Practitioners' Club.  First Vael mentioned using the small pyramid to teleport back to the other small pyramid and then take the goblins down to Gog, but Ioannes reminded him that they had never teleported in that direction and didn't know if it was possible.  They then decided to just fly everyone back up the Well of Light to the surface.  Vael asked Ketil to carry the arcanum globe, and the goblins to take the cauldron again, and they all went north back to the bottom of the Well.  Vael cast Flight on Michael again, and he flew up and down the well many times, carrying either somebody or some heavy piece of loot on each trip.  After ten trips up and down, everyone was at the top.  The three goblins had run off in the commotion, but they left the magic cauldron.

The group and their remaining followers headed south through the ruins then west to the dam, where they had a wheelbarrow stashed.  They put the arcanum and cauldron in the wheelbarrow, then continued south to the Long Stair.  About a third of the way down, Marco the Beastmen said goodbye and went into the secret door into the Great Cavern.  At the bottom of the cliff, Egrk waved goodbye and headed west.  Ketil the Wiskin ranger went back to Gosterwick with the party, and helped push the wheelbarrow.

GM's Comments:

I was surprised the PCs chose the Well of Light, as the line of retreat relies heavily on magical flight, but they managed to get in, kill some baboons and an undead librarian, find a big honking globe of arcanum, and get out.

Achievements:

• The Rescuers: 1 XP for rescuing 3 goblins, Egrk, Ketil, and Marco

XP:

• Exploration: 7 new locations,  1 XP
• Loot: Magic cauldron, a few coins and gems, and a big ball of arcanum.  2 XP if they sold the arcanum.  They kept it, so 1 XP.
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

Ioannes expressed interest in finding the Library of Thoth and moving Stamelis there.  So there's a chance they will attempt that.  There was also continued griping about Plumthorn's Halflings being in the way of wherever they want to go, so maybe they'll try removing them.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 17: Cleaning Out the Vermin

Date: 

Demmasday, 4th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Thronebreaker (Thrainor Ironvein), Dwarven mercenary fighter (Martin)

Chrysalis (Lasselanta Ashcroft), Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Several giant centipedes

Many large spiders

Zombie porter

3 Stone monkeys

Lankios, very old hermit

Carcass creeper

Many Stirges

2 Baboon skeletons

Dust monster

With Vael, Uvash, Michael, and Ioannes all busy, Vallium decided to hire the same pair of Grudge Brigade mercenaries as last time, and explore more of the ruined basement that Jost had showed them.  They brought a wheelbarrow full of food as trade goods.  It was a hot dry day, so footing was good on the Long Stair, and they did not encounter anything of note on the way to the ruins.  They continued north through the ruins of Arden Vul, past the Obilisk of the Sun, through the Forum, past the creepy square tower, to the ruined building west of the Pyramid of Thoth.

They headed down the stairs into the ruined basement, initially leaving the wheelbarrow behind.  The stairs entered a large rectangular room with the roof supported by columns, with debris and trash all over the floor, along with a couple of relatively fresh bodies.  Vallium first circled the room to find the exits, then came back to search the corpses.  Both had necrotic skin and some bite marks.  One wore scale armor and the other had mail, and one was clutching a potion that looked magic.  They stripped off the armor and took the potion, then went back up the stairs to get the wheelbarrow, and left it just behind the stairs, with the armor inside.

There were double doors in the north center of the room where Vallium remembered running past some giant centipedes, so instead they went to the northwest corner of the room, where there were doors north and west.  They listened to both doors and heard noises to the west, so went north.  A short passage led to a relatively clear room, containing an anvil with a silver chalice on it.  This looked suspicious, but after some discussion Stonebreaker knocked the chalice off the anvil with his axe, and nothing interesting happened, so Vallium took the chalice and put it in the wheelbarrow.

Continuing north, they listened at another door, heard nothing, and opened it.  Inside was a dusty room with Thothian frescoes on all the walls and a large stone altar.  There were what looked like barefoot human footprints in the dust.  Vallium searched the altar and though he found a hidden compartment.  He tried opening it and a needle flashed out, but he moved his hands away in time.  All three adventurers looked for a way to open the compartment without smashing it (because they were afraid of damaging whatever was inside), but didn't find one.  They left the alter for another time.

Farther north, they found another room containing a dead halfling, with leather armor, a shortsword, a sling, a pouch with some spikes and a flask of oil, and a note about using a little pyramid to access the Howling Caves.  They found another room with its door spiked just slightly ajar.  Inside were a ridiculously heavy magic spear with some Mithric writing on it that Chrysalis couldn't quite puzzle out, along with a pouch with some coins and small green gems. They took everything and again carried it all back to the entrance room to stow it in their wheelbarrow.

While crossing the entrance room, Vallium spotted several giant centipedes, which had squeezed between the not-quite-closed the doors to the north.  A brief fight ensued, where all the centipedes were quickly killed.

They next decided to try the western door that they had bypassed before.  As they did, some large spiders tried to jump on Vallium's head, but he saw them and jumped back.  The spiders swarmed out and surrounded the three adventurers.  This led to a fairly long fight, where Chysalis parried a lot of spider bites with her two staves, while the three adventurers gradually killed the spiders.  The spiders were good at dodging, but bad at surviving once they got hit.  Once the spiders were eliminated, Vallium (wearing the Ring of Free Action) waded into their room through their webs looking for treasure, while Chrysalis and Thronebreaker rested and guarded outside.  Vallium quickly found a book written in a weird language that nobody even recognized, and later found a small red gem.  Chrysalis wondered if there might be more treasure in the webs, so asked Thronebreaker to cast Seek Earth for both silver and gold.  Both pointed back to the wheelbarrow, so they were satisfied that there was nothing else in the webs.

Continuing to explore, the group went north then east then south, again avoiding the double doors where they suspected there might be more centipedes.  They first found an old storeroom full of only junk and debris.  They then found another storeroom, this one containing a single zombie wearing a dog collar.  They were prepared for a fight, but then surprised when the zombie merely walked up to Vallium and didn't attack him.  Attempts at conversation were fruitless, but the zombie doggedly followed Vallium around.  Eventually they took the zombie's collar, and it didn't resist.  Chrysalis suggested putting a backpack on the zombie, but Vallium declined.  Eventually they decided to leave the zombie in the room and close the door so it wouldn't follow them.

They continued south, to the other side of the double doors, but didn't see any centipedes.  Vallium fully opened a stuck door so they could get out that way without having to squeeze through.  They then continued east, and saw some light coming under the door, along with the foul stench of rotting vegetation.  The door had a lock on it, which looked recently oiled.  Vallium knocked on the door, but nobody answered.  He opened the door, which was unlocked.  Inside was a room that wasn't fully of trash, and had actually been swept.  On the far wall was a pot containing some horrible-smelling stew, over a magical heating tripod.  There were also a few vermin corpses arranged on the walls to dry.  They looked around a bit, but whoever lived there wasn't home, so they left.

They continued east then north, found doors north and west, and didn't hear anything behind either.  They opened the western door and saw a room containing a stone pedestal with a statue of a money on it, with its oversized mouth wide open.  A few seconds after they entered the room, the monkey coughed loudly at Thronebreaker, who was not affected.  At that point they saw a second monkey statue flying to the west, with huge eyes.  The second monkey looked at Vallium, and fire shot out of its eyes and tried to burn him, but failed to penetrate his armor.  Vallium wrestled the first monkey to turn its mouth away from Thronebreaker and stop the attacks, then started smashing it against the pedestal.  Meanwhile Chrysalis went over to the flying monkey and knocked it out of the air with her staff.  A third, previously unseen, flying monkey, this one with huge ears, flew near Thronebreaker and let loose a loud shriek.  He hit it with a Power Blow and shattered it.  Vallium smashed the non-flying statue against the pedestal again, then Chrysalis and Thronebreaker joined in with their weapons, and all the monkey statues were no longer a threat.  Vallium picked up a bone scroll case from the floor.  There was also a corpse on the floor, with its ears bleeding.  Vallium took a gold ring, some leather armor, and a small ingot off the body, and they returned to the wheelbarrow to stow their loot.

Continuing west from the monkey room, they listened to another door and heard nothing.  The door was stuck closed, but Vallium muscled it open.  He went into another room to search the debris, but once he disturbed something, the ceiling started caving in.  He charged back out the door before any debris landed on his head.  The cave-in continued for a while, leaving that room impassable.

Going back east to a door they had bypassed, they found a room with a pool of smelly sludge and a female corpse, this one with no armor.  She looked drained, as if by a strix.  They ignored the sludge, but looted the body, getting a dagger, a bag of gold dust, and a scroll that Chrysalis said was Detect Magic.  Going west from the sludge pool room, they found a door, behind which they heard crunching sounds.  Everyone got ready, then they opened the door and charged in.  They failed to surprise a large many-tentacled creature that was noisily eating a human body.  It attacked Vallium a few times with tentacles and bites, but he parried and blocked and dodged, and then it was three on one.  They knocked the creature unconscious within a few seconds, then Vallium stabbed it a lot to ensure it never woke up.  The half-eaten corpse had some mail, a broadsword,  and a pouch with a few coins and a map.  The map showed several rooms, and had notes in Archontean like "secret?" and "short jerks."  

Once again they carried all the loot back to their wheelbarrow.  On the way, they ran into a barefoot old man who looked like he hadn't shaved or bathed in a years.  He introduced himself as Lankios, and invited them back to his room to talk.  He offered some of his (foul-smelling) stew, which they initially declined.  A long and rambling conversation ensued, where Lankios claimed to have been one of the former leaders of Adrienic's expedition, and said something about a crime where someone named K killed someone named Guivrel.  The story didn't make a lot of sense.  He also warned them about the nearby vermin.  Vallium asked if he wanted to go back to town, but Lankios declined, saying he needed to remain here until the crime was solved, but he wasn't as good at going up and down ladders as he used to be.  Vallium donated their extra food to Lankios, and ate a bit of his foul stew.

Vallium thought they had explored most of the level except for the stirge-infested area to the north, and suggested they try to run past the stirges into the other rooms there then slam the door, rather than fighting a possibly huge number of stirges.  They successfully managed to run past the stirges into a room to the northeast, with a few parries and blocks required.  Once they closed the door behind Thronebreaker, they looked around and saw that the eastern wall had collapsed, but there were some legs sticking out, and there was one boot on one of the feet.  Chrysalis and Thronebreaker thought the boot looked magic, so Vallium and Thronebreaker tried moving stones while Chrysalis pulled the body out.  The single boot was all they managed to get though.

Thronebreaker thought there was another door nearby to the southwest and it was open, but Vallium remembered it as closed.  In any case, they decided to repeat their trick of running to the other door past the stirges then shutting it to keep them out.  Thronebreaker was correct and the door was open, so this was pretty easy; they only had to parry a couple of stirge attacks to get inside.  The room contained four stone vats, one empty, one with water, one with some foul-smelling rancid former food of some sort, and one with lamp oil.  They didn't need any water or oil, so they left.  This time, they sprinted north, toward the stairs that they came up last time.  The stairs spiraled down a few hundred feet, into a square room with no obvious exits.  They walked through the illusory wall to the west, into a room with an open wooden door south, a closed stone door south, and a closed wooden door west.

They listened to the closed doors, heard nothing, and went west.  The room there contained two animated skeletons of baboons, who attacked.  Vallium shield rushed it and it went down hard, as if particularly brittle to crushing damage.  Chrysalis smashed the other one with her staff and it fell to pieces.  The only semi-intact furniture in the room was a single cupboard, which contained a few pieces of parchment with Mithric writing that Chrysalis could not puzzle out.

The stone door to the south did not have a handle and they could not figure out a way to open it.  Thronebreaker pulled out his portable battering ram, enlisted Vallium to help, and powered up Power Blow.  Together they smashed it for enough damage to shatter the door.  They proceeded south down a passage, through a normal wooden door, into a mostly empty room containing an old wooden desk and chair covered in gold leaf.  Gold is gold, as the dwarves say, so the three of them spent the next fifteen minutes painstakingly removing gold leaf and putting it in a pouch.  Thronebreaker then noticed a few flakes the others had missed and spent a couple more minutes making sure absolutely no gold was left behind.

They went through a door east into a room with a couple of inches of dust on the floor, and some bright orange light coming through peepholes near some large bronze double doors to the south.  As they searched the room, some of the dust formed into a miniature tornado, which attacked them.  The wind blew them around enough that Chrysalis and Thronebreaker had a hard time keeping their bearings, but Vallium's magic ring left him unaffected.  The three of them took turns bashing the dust creature, but their blows only did minimal damage, so it took a long time to beat it down.  It failed to injure any of them, however.  When it finally went down, they dumped some water on its remains, which seemed to finish it off.  Searching the room revealed a magic halberd and a human corpse.  The body had a gold signet ring with "Gregor" inscribed, a magic potion, and a flask of water.

At that point, Vallium declared that they had found enough treasure and he did not want to press their luck further by opening any more doors.  So they went back up the stairs, then tried sprinting past the stirges again.  This time, about a half-dozen were waiting for them, and one managed to bite Thronebreaker.  It was only a minor wound, and then they were past the stirge lair.  They continued back to their wheelbarrow, dragged it up the stairs, and headed back south across the ruins, down the Long Stair, and then back to Gosterwick.

Once back in town, Thronebreaker discovered he was feeling awful: the minor stirge bite was starting to give him a nasty case of Stirge Fever.  Not wanting to unnecessarily spend any of his hard-earned gold on a cleric, he sat at home, counting his money, and waiting for his strong dwarven immune system to fix the problem.

GM's Comments:

Three-player sessions move faster than four- or five-player sessions, and in this case one of the PCs was clearly in charge and the other two were working for him, so it was fun to watch people make quick decisions and methodically explore a level.

Achievements:

• None

XP:

• Exploration: 18 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: magic spear, magic halberd, lots of valuable weapons and armor, etc., good for 2 XP
• Total:  3 XP

Next Week:

We should have more PCs next time.  Maybe they'll try to finish off the stirges, or the halflings, or something else.

DFRPG Arden Vul: Mid-2993 Summary

It's the end of Jelenios, halfway through the year 2993 AEP, so it's time for a quick summary of the state of the DFRPG Arden Vul campaign.

Number of sessions: 16

Number of players: 8

Number of PCs: 10

• Cheese and Crackers / Right for Riches / Left for Loot members: 5
• Grudge Brigade mercenaries: 5

Number of PCs killed: 0 (!)

Highest PC point total: 179 (Ioannes)

Entrances to the Halls of Arden Vul found and used: 7

• Pyramid of Thoth, statue arms forward, stairs to Glory of Thoth
• Plumthorn's halflings may no longer allow entry
• Well of Light
• Over 200' down, requires magical flight or a lot of rope
• Pyramid of Thoth, statue arms up, stairs to pit to Scorpion teleporter
• Teleported to Great Hall
• Teleported to Gog's Cave
• Teleported to Ruby Chair
• Beastman secret entrance from Long Stair to Great Cavern
• Cistern leading to tunnels to Howling Caves
• Tunnel plugged using Shape Earth, may no longer be usable
• Underwater tunnels behind waterfall plunge pool
• Found using Water Vision spell
• May require super-human swimming or water breathing to survive
• Ruined basement to hidden staircase northwest of Glory of Thoth
• Found by Dalton's Darlings, secret shared by Jost

Entrances to Halls of Arden Vul rumored but not yet explored: 1

• Basket up the Cliff Face west of the Swift River to the Forum of Set

Arden Vul Iconic Locations found: 8

• The Pyramid of Thoth
• The Glory of Thoth
• The Well of Light
• The Great Hall
• The Great Cavern
• The Great Chasm
• The Howling Caves
• The Archon's Palace of Arden Vul

NPCs Rescued from the Halls: 5

• Klisko
• Versania
• Samantha the Red
• Jost
• Tresti

NPCs Who Mysteriously Disappeared While Being Rescued from the Halls: 1

• Gwelf

Largest Enemy Killed:

• Giant Snapping Turtle (SM +4)

Largest Enemy Appeased:

• Craastonistorex, Green Dragon (SM +5)

Smallest Enemy Killed:

• Bees (SM -10)

Smallest Enemy Appeased:

• Plumthorn's Halflings (SM -2)

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 16: Random Scorpion Teleport to the Hall of Judgment

Date: 

Demmasday, 27th of Jelenius, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry with a chance of thunderstorms

Player Characters: 

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Thronebreaker (Thrainor Ironvein), Dwarven mercenary fighter (Martin)

Chrysalis (Lasselanta Ashcroft), Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

3 undead rats

2 ghouls

Small ball-shaped rolling demon

Gerrilad, Half-Elven druid

Sisko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Trefko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Many large albino baboons

2 large crocodiles

Some kind of goo creature

Njal, Wiskin jailer

Samantha the Red, Archontean fighter prisoner

Tresti, Half-Elven wizard prisoner

Gwelf, crazy Dwarven thief prisoner

Jost, Thorcin barbarian prisoner and member of Dalton's Darlings

Many stirges

Several giant centipedes

Dalton, Archontean fighter and leader of Dalton's Darlings

Jason, Helga, Heliagabulus, Isisor, and Yvette: Dalton's Darlings

With Vael still not back from Newmarket and Uvash still busy trying to set up a new church, the Right for Riches company hired two mercenaries, Thronebreaker and Chrysalis.  After some brief ritualistic discussion about killing Plumthorn's halflings, they decided to go down the less traveled steps into the Pyramid of Thoth and use the Scorpion teleporter, even though they were not sure where it would take them.

They bought a wheelbarrow full of food as trade goods, and walked all the way to the Cliff Face, then climbed all the way up the Long Stair to the ruins of Arden Vul, and reached the Pyramid of Thoth with no significant encounters.  They pushed both of the statue's arms straight up to open the less-used entrance, and didn't even bother spiking it open.  They proceded down the dusty stairs, past corpses they had already looted, until they reached the area where Vallium thought the slide trap was.  At that point Ioannes suggested tying a rope around Vallium, so that if he triggered the trap he would not fall very far.  However, Vallium managed to jump over the trap without triggering it, and the others followed.  They proceded down the stairs, over the closed lid over the Pit of Bones, and over to the probably-false door that they knew would open the pit.

While listening to the door Just In Case, Chrysalis heard what sounded like the skittering of rats above.  Everyone got into ambush position, and put away their light sources since the room was adequately lit by orange Continual Light.  Three undead rats and two ghouls ran into the room, and were not surprised.  They were no match for Vallium Michael, and Chrysalis, though, and the fight was over pretty quickly.

There was some discussion of having Thronebreaker destroy the false door, but someone mentioned that the pit might not open if they broke the mechanism, so instead they opened the false door (which opened the pit lid), then smashed the wall behind it.  This made a dent in the wall but did not reveal anything interesting.  At that point four of them held a rope and lowered Vallium down 25' into the pit.  He didn't find any enemies, just bones, so Michael lowered each of the others in turn.  As the last one in the room above, Michael tied the rope to the doorknob of the false door, then climbed down the rope, while Vallium prepared to catch him if necessarily.  Michael executed both the knot-tying and the rope climbing successfully, so there was no catching necessary.  However, this did cost the group a rope.

After a quick look through the bones at the bottom of the pit in case they missed any treasure, Vallium went east into the room with the scorpion statue.  As expected, one of the small spherical demons immediately came out of the black gate to attack.  Since it was expected, the ambush attack failed, and it was a five-on-one fight.  The demon got thoroughly chopped up, and then the group proceeded together to the scorpion statue.  Wary of possibly being teleported to different places, they all held hands and tried to grab the scorpion's tail together.

They teleported -- and ended up in a placed they had never before entered but had looked into from afar, the Hall of Judgment near the bottom of the Well of Light.  The half-elven druid they had spotted before was standing in front of a giant throne that looked like it had been curved from a single ruby gem.  Once again he was torturing and questioning a prisoner manacled to a post, but this time it was a muscular redheaded woman.  The druid was flanked by two giant four-armed baboons, and several smaller (but still large, about man-sized) albino baboons were watching the show.

Vallium engaged the nearer of the giant baboons.  He quickly cripped one of his arms with an accurate sword cut.  Michael heaved a boomerang, but it was dodged.  Chrysalis used Flurry of Blows to achieve super-half-elven speed, and charged the druid.  Thronebreaker attempted Intimidation, and caused the smaller baboons to hesitate to join the fight.  Ioannes moved up to cast a Shield spell on Michael.

The giant baboon engaged Vallium, but got its huge punch parried and another arm badly injured.  Michael drew his sword to helm, as Ioannes started casting Flaming Weapon.  Thronebreaker ran forward, slowly, to help the prisoner.  Chrysalis started smacking the druid around with her staff, interfering with his attempts to cast spells and direct his minions.

Quickly, the druid was knocked unconscious and one of the giant baboons was down, with a couple of crippled arms and a crippled leg.  This caused the other giant baboon and all the smaller baboons to break and run.  Vallium and Michael then gradually hacked the wounded giant baboon to bits, repeatedly crippling limbs and stunning him until he was all out of arms and legs.  Then Thronebreaker smashed the prisoner's manacles, while Michael cut the bonds around her ankles.

A door opened to the east, and a man charged in, wearing mail and holding an axe and shield, to help save his boss.  Unfortunately for him, with the druid and one giant baboon down and the others fled, he was a bit late and running into an unfair fight.  He took several hits, got knocked down, and then was killed with a blow to the skull from Chrysalis.

Freed from the torture post, Samantha the Red walked over to the ruby throne and hit a hidden stud that she had seen the druid use before.  A hidden pit opened to the southwest, and another to the southeast.  She went to pick up the evil druid and throw him in the pit, but someone asked if they should keep him alive for questioning and someone else said they should at least take off his armor first since it looked magical.  Samantha pretended not to hear the first request but acknowledged the second.  She rolled her eyes, then helped strip the druid.  Once all his gear was off, she picked him up, walked over to the pit, and threw him in.  There were two large crocodiles in the pit, and they were apparently not very trained, as they cheerfully ate their unconscious master.  An inhuman voice echoed out "The Thrice-Born Lingust!", and nobody was quite sure what that meant.  They looked in the other pit, and there was some kind of goo creature with tentacles inside, so they didn't look closer.

Samantha thanked the group for rescuing her, then pointed at the dead guy and said "that's Njal; he was the jailer."  She pointed to the door he came through and said "the cells are over there and there are three other prisoners."  Chrysalis ran in and started looking for loot in the jailer's room.  Vallium had Gerrilad's keys, and used them to unlock three cells and release Tresti the half-elven mage, Jost the Thorcin barbarian, and Gwelf the apparently insane dwarf, who was running around his cage singing silly dwarven drinking songs.  Once released, Gwelf immediately ran to the jailer's room, found the barrel of food, and ate several meals of it, then ran behind the throne and started scooping up coins from a large pile there.  Not wanting to be outdone, everyone else started scooping coins too.  There were three backpacks in the jailer's room, and three of the former prisoners each took one and filled it with coins.  When they were done picking up the coins, they saw an inscription in Mithric on the floor under where the pile had been.  Ioannes thought it said something like "Speak the Secret Name and Claim Your Reward."

The prisoners looked to their rescuers for help getting out, but the rescuers explained that they'd teleported in and didn't really know the way out, but maybe they could get up the Well of Light with Apportation if they had to.  (Neither Ioannes nor Tresti had Levitation.)  While everyone discussed what to do next, someone noticed that Gwelf was gone, and the door to the northeast was open.  Everyone eventually went that way, then west down a corridor, then south then west some more.  Eventually they found some stairs, but they went down rather than up.  There was also a closed portcullis to the west, with a lever next to it.  There were some closed doors around, but someone advised not opening closed doors, as they didn't want any more fights if they could avoid them.  Chrysalis went off exploring on her own, and ran into 6 baboons.  They mobbed her, and she retreated while occasionally smacking one with her staff, while the others rushed over to help.  By the time the rest of the group arrived, one baboon was badly hurt and the rest realized this was not the easy fight they wanted, and ran away.

The group decided to take the stairs down, and found a closed portcullis.  Beyond the portcullis was a room with 3 levers, about five yards out of reach.  Vallium asked if Ioannes could use Apportation to move the lever, but with his low magical aptitude and high number of active Bless spells, he didn't think the odds were great.  Tresti stepped up and said she could give it a try, and managed to move the lever.  The portcullis opened.  A passage lead east, past the fresh corpse of a dead adventurer, which was quickly looted of a few coins and potions.  Continuing further east, everyone saw that they were in territory they recognized, northwest of the Glory of Thoth.

Jost revealed that he knew another exit that Dalton's Darlings used to smuggle treasure out past the halflings, and that maybe they should go that way rather than giving the halflings a cut of all these coins.  Everyone agreed.  Jost led them east, then north.  He then said "watch this" and walked right through the eastern wall.  The others followed him through the illusory wall, into a room with a spiral staircase up.  At the top of the stairs, Jost indicated that everyone needed to run south and look out for stirges and giant centipedes.  Jost protected Tresti and casually knocked a strix out of the air with Njal's axe, as everyone ran south.  They then ran past several giant centipedes and up some stairs, emerging from a ruin just west of the Pyramid of Thoth.

Shortly after coming out of the ruin, they spotted another group of adventurers approaching.  When Jost saw them he was thrilled, as they were his friends, Dalton's Darlings.  Jost ran forward to embrace Dalton, who had assumed he was dead.  After the reunion, Dalton invited everyone over to the Sign of the Broken Head for a drink, while Jost relayed the story of being captured by Gerrilad and his baboons and kept in their jail in his west Thorcin hill accent.  Jost stayed with Dalton's Darlings, while the Right for Riches company took Samantha the Red and Tresti back to Gosterwick.

GM's Comments:

My Internet had gone down during a power outage the night before and was not back up by game time, so I ran this session using my phone as a hotspot for both FoundryVTT and Discord voice.  Ugh.

I was a bit surprised when the players decided on the random scorpion teleporter as their best option, and when I rolled "Hall of Judgment" I thought they might be teleporting into a TPK.  Gerrilad, 2 giant baboons, 6 large baboons, and Njal was not an easy fight, and teleporting in meant they had no line of retreat.  They had a few things in their favor, though.  One, they had brought 4 front-line fighters, an unusually tough group.  Two, Gerrilad was in the middle of a questioning session and was not really ready for a fight.  Three, Njal was in his own room and had to make a hearing roll then get his gear together before he could join.  Four, Thronebreaker has a ridiculous Intimidate skill, which came in handy for scaring away some of the baboons.  Five, and probably most critically, my GURPS conversion of the giant 4-armed baboons did not give them the Striker advantage.  My advice to big strong monsters with hands but no Strikers is to learn how to use a club.  It could save your arms! 

Almost every GURPS mage has Levitation (super useful spell, and cheap to cast if the target is light enough, with the only prerequisite being Apportation, which is itself useful), yet somehow none of the four mages in this group had it.  To be fair, only Tresti was a full-time mage; the others were all dabblers.  And she's an NPC converted from an AD&D module, so she kinda has an excuse of not really being optimized in GURPS.  Still, embarrassing.  Luckily they found another way off the level besides flying up the Well of Light, and so didn't have to fight their way through an entire Planet of the Apes sequel.

Achievements:

• Prison Break: 1 XP for saving Samantha, Tresti, Jost, and maybe Gwelf.

XP:

• Exploration: 15 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: Gerrilad's stuff, Njal's stuff, stuff they found on a dead body, a whole pile of coins: good for 1-2 XP depending on how much of the magic they sell
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3-4 XP 

Next Week:

Jost showed them a new entrance to the Halls, so maybe they'll try going back that way.  Or maybe they'll play Scorpion Teleporter Roulette again, as it's worked three times in a row.