DFRPG Arden Vul Session 62: Behind the Fireball Traps

Date:

Basilsday 18th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, partly cloudy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Mistral, intelligent scimitar

Cers, intelligent scimitar

Yamki, three-armed giant intelligent baboon

Many baboons

3 mantari

10 constructs of Archontean orators

The Plan:

• Explore the Rudishva area near the Hall of Shrines
• Commission a map from Temrin in the Goblin Market
• Visit the Arena

What Happened:

Vallium returned to find that Mistral (the magic scimitar they had found months ago which had until recently been silent) and Cers (the magic scimitar they had recently found in the hands of Cinna Minux) were each suggesting that the other one be melted down or at least disenchanted.  After talking to Mistral, he suggested that maybe Akla-Chah could figure out which one was telling the truth.

It had been a month since they'd brought food to the baboons per the terms of their peace treaty, so the group took a shopping trip to the Grain House and bought a wheelbarrow full of assorted food through the Teleport Rugs to the Beacon, for later delivery to the baboons.

Vael was late for their delve, as he was using a Trace spell to try to find the exact location of another Teleport Rug.  The others left without him.  They went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Secure Vault, then through a teleporter in the Cloister to the Rudishva Transport Hub, then through another teleporter to the area that the Goat's bat had scouted the previous week.  They expected to find a blue granite slab with some circles on top, and standing on the circles would cause the slab to move upwards to another level.

Instead, they found an empty shaft heading up into the darkness, with no blue granite slab.  There was a sigil with four circles on the wall.  They waved silver and yellow Rudishva identity plaques at it, to no effect.  Vallium used the Boots of Levitation to fly up the shaft until he saw the underside of the blue granite slab, but there was no way around it.  He flew back down to the others, then, not having brought the Command Bracelet, used the Teleport Rug to go back to the Beacon to talk to Akla-Chah.

Akla-Chah said the granite slab sounded like an "elevator" which was a Rudishva technological device for vertical transport.  She suggested that if waving a plaque at the circles on the wall didn't work, it might actually be necessary to touch the circles.  As Vallium was talking to Akla-Chah, Vael wandered in, reporting that the Teleport Rug he was looking for was rolled up in a closet somewhere in Lady Alexia's residence, but without actually breaking in he hadn't figured out the exact room.

Vael and Vallium went back through the Rug to the Halls, rejoining Uvash and Ioannes at the bottom of the elevator shaft.  Vael touched the circle on the wall, and eventually the blue granite slab came down the shaft and stopped at the bottom.  They all stood on the slab, and Vael touched the circles on the slab with his foot, and the slab went up.  A few minutes later it stopped and some doors opened, into an octagonal Rudishva-architecture room.

As Goat had reported based on his summoned bat recon, the room contained many chambers that looked like Rudishva-sized coffins, made of plasteel, with transparent windows in the front.  Some appeared to be empty and unpowered.  One appeared to be empty but powered, with some flashing lights and humming sounds, and some tubes carrying some yellow gel back and forth to a vat in the center of the room.  Six appeared to be occupied: two with Rudishva, one with a skinny bald gray unidentified humanoid, one with some kind of rock elemental, one with some kind of black goo, and one with some horribly ugly demon hag.  Looking through the windows, it wasn't entirely clear if the occupants were alive or dead, but no decay was visible so they were either alive or well-preserved corpses.

Vael went back through the Rug to the Beacon to collect a GnuCoder 1000 tablet and the data crystal "Crew Roster (Medical)."  He then started looking at all the Beacon crew members, trying to identify if the two Rudishva present were in the list.  He identified Triv-Lok, a Flight Jemadar, and Talg-Roe, a Gravitics Test Engineer.  He called Akla-Chah on the Command Tablet to confirm this finding and his previous notes about the two.  Akla-Chah re-iterated that Talg-Roe had been cryogenically frozen to slow the process of a terminal a disease that was not treatable with local facilities, and that Triv-Lok had been frozen as punishment for treason, after trying to negotiate a separate peace with the Kaliyani and Heqeti after their attack.  She said that the other humanoid sounded like a Niravairi, and that she didn't have any record of why it was there, but the Niravairi didn't always get along with the Rudishva so it might be a prisoner.  She didn't know about the other creatures in the pods and suspected they might be local to Arden Vul.

They looked at the controls a bit, finding a green button, a blue button, and a yellow button.  (Uvash looked for a big red button to push, but there was not one.)  There was also a screen that was not showing anything, one large card slot, and thirteen small card slots, with six of them containing cards.  Vael read the Rudishva glyphs on the buttons and saw that the green button had a one and a zero, the blue button had the sigil for "open", and the yellow button had a glyph that Vael wasn't sure about, which Akla-Chah eventually confirmed was the symbol for a different kind of "open" in the sense of opening a faucet and letting water flow.  After some discussion, the group decided to not play with the controls today.

Vallium found a caved-in passage leading east.  There was also a passage south and a hole in the wall to the northwest.  Vael turned on the Command Bracelet, looking for technology it could talk to, and saw that the Bracelet had reverted to Rudishva language when he turned it off to change the battery, and was showing a Rudishva glyph he didn't know.  He eventually got it back to Mithric, at which point the icon was replaced by the Mithric word for "construct" in Mithric.  So there was apparently a Rudishva construct of some sort within range.

Vallium went through the hole to the northwest and found a Thothian shrine, with gray walls with strange symbols within them.  The western end of the shrine was blocked by a translucent force field.  Beyond the force field was the Hall of Shrines, with the huge statue of Thoth breathing orange pneuma nearby.  Vallium got one of their two Stones of Passage that allegedly allowed passing through force fields, and walked through the field.  This worked, but the Stone went inert afterward.  Vallium was now trapped on the other side of the force field.  He breathed in Thoth's pneuma, feeling his strength and health diminish but his intelligence and openness to Thoth increase.  He wasn't happy about the decreased strength, and drank a strength potion to compensate.

Vallium walked over to the force field and gestured that the Stone no longer worked.  Vael tried a Blink Other spell, but he felt the force field resist his teleportation magic.  Vael suggested that the others go through the Teleport Rug, then he could use the remaining Stone of Passage to join Vallium, then they could come join them through the Rug.  This worked, and this time the Stone's power was not consumed.

The united group explored the Hall of Shrines.  They saw many statues of ancient Archontean heroes, along with some missing or destroyed statues.  They saw eight shrines off to the sides, with seven of them blocked by force fields and one open.  The open one contained a blue disc on the floor, a statue of Thoth, and a marble table containing some silver (or maybe platinum?) scales.  Uvash ran forward to investigate, but was warned off.  After some discussion, Vael stepped forward onto the blue disc, and felt the room freeze around him while Thoth entered his mind and asked three questions about justice.  Vael answered all three questions, giving the answers he thought Thoth would want, and was rewarded by increased willpower and by the scales on the marble table moving toward him.  He grabbed the scales, which were made of platinum and appeared to be magical.

After some peering through the force fields, the group decided that the open shrine was different from last time, so maybe the force fields changed over time.  Vallium looked for any symbols of time to indicate when that might happen, but didn't see any.  Uvash suggested just staying in the room for a while to see if anything changed, but Vallium said he had just drunk a strength potion and didn't want to waste it, so they should get going.

Everyone went up the stairs, north through a secret door, west through another secret door to the room with the Ruby Chair, and south to the Well of Light.  Looking up, it was a bit too cloudy to do the Litany of Light.  They went through the Rug to get the wheelbarrow full of food for the baboons, then east to the Howling Caves where most of the baboons lived.  Yamki the Three-Armed greeted them there.  He thanked them for remembering that today was food day, and asked if they marked days on the wall like he did.  Vael asked for any news, and Yamki reported that the green dragon had been seen flying near the cliff recently, but fortunately hadn't spotted the baboons who were skillfully hiding.  He also said that several baby baboons had been born.

Vallium suggested that they explore the passages off the Great Chasm on this level.  They walked north and east until they found the bridge over the chasm, and Vael cast Walk on Air on Uvash and Ioannes so everyone could (sort of) fly.  Vallium led the group south to some openings in the chasm they had noted but not investigated.  On the way, three small flying manta-rays with stingers attacked them.  It was a quick fight: Vallium killed two of the mantari, and the third one fled.

The first opening they explored led to a cavern containing a large arcanum geode.  The walls throbbed with orange light.  Vael and Ioannes resisted the urge to stay and investigate the arcanum, but Vael and Uvash took a quick look around to see if there were any lumps of arcanum they could easily take.  Vael found one and Uvash took two.  Nobody had a pickaxe handy, so Vael reached into Larel's Sack to see if there was one there, and there was.  Uvash skillfully mined the three lumps of arcanum, while Ioannes warned that the room was on the verge of collapse and they should get out of there.

Contining down the chasm, they found a rough passage to the east, which led to a four-way intersection, with baboon noises and smells ahead.  Vallium turned left, and found a worked room, with five doors, a lot of baboon dung, and various burned trash on the floor.  As he entered the room, an image of a woman appeared.  She had very long blonde hair and wore a white dress.  She held up her right hand in the universal sign for "stop" and said, in Mithric, “Stop! You are not welcome. Return whence you came and you will avoid retribution. Proceed and you shall die.”  She then disappeared.

The group decided that the combination of burned stuff and warnings meant possible fire traps, so Vallium and Uvash put on Salamander Amulets.  (Ioannes was already wearing one.)  They didn't have a fourth, so Vael stayed out of the room, while the other three went in.  Vallium opened a door, and a fireball went off, not burning them.  He repeated this with the other doors, and got four more fireballs.  Ioannes cast See Secrets and found a secret door on the east wall, with a keyhole hidden in the shadows of a fresco.  Vallium lept into action and expertly tried his entire collection of about 100 keys, none of which fit.  He went to get Vael, passing him an amulet.  When Vael entered the room, the image of the woman appeared again to warn him off.  Vael ignored her and cast Lockmaster on the keyhole, and was rewarded with the click of the secret door unlocking, plus another fireball.  Beyond the door was a dusty staircase down into the darkness.  Uvash went in first, far enough to be out of fireball range, then passed back his salamander amulet, so the other three could proceed without anyone worrying about getting burned.

The group went down a dusty passage for a while, then found an octagonal room with secret doors (easily spotted as Vael had See Secrets on) on three walls and a statue of an archon in the center.  Vael investigated all three secret doors but failed to find a way to open them.  He tried the Glass Wall spell to look through the secret doors, and found that all three were lined with lead to prevent scrying.  He tried casting Lockmaster blind without seeing the lock, in case he got lucky, to no avail.  Giving up on magic, he checked out the statue, and saw that its hands were articulated, like some of the Thoth statues.  He pointed both hands north and the north door opened.

The north door led to a locked wooden door.  Vallium again tried all of his keys, and was again disappointed.  Vael Lockmastered the door.  Beyond was a small octagonal room with three more doors and a pool of murkey water.  Uvash immediately stuck his face in the pool and started drinking.  The water tasted stale and flat, but didn't make him sick or cause any other notable effects.  Vallium, with Vael and Ioannes watching, opened the western door.  It led to a small closet containing only a long mirror on the wall.  The three of them saw their reflections in the mirror, which tried to pull them in, but all three resisted.  Vael told everyone else to look away, then went into the closet with the mirror and spent half an hour casting Analyze Magic.  The spell told him that the mirror tried to imprison anyone who looked at it.  Not wanting to spend more time figuring out the mirror further right now, he went through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon to warn Basil and Akla-Chah about the dangerous mirror that he would be carrying through that nobody should ever look at.  He then took the mirror off the wall, carried it through the Beacon, and set it shiny-side-down on a table in the workshop.

For the other two doors, they were more cautious.  Vael used Glass Wall to look through the doors, so that nobody else would see what was on the other side.  Both contained a mirror like the first one, and he felt both of the mirrors try to pull him in, but resisted both times.  They repeated the same process, where everyone else looked away, while Vael went in, grabbed the mirror while trying not to look at it, and carried it through the Rug.  Eventually he collected all three mirrors.  They then spent a while searching for secret doors, didn't find any, and went back to the statue.

Vael pointed the statue's hands south.  This opened the south door.  A narrow twisty passage had fancy lapis lazuli letters on the floor reading "DENRAWEREWOUY" (except in Mithric), then ended in a blank wall.  Using advanced wizardly code-breaking skills, Vael read this backwards as "you were warned."  They looked for a secret door in the obvious place, didn't spot it with magic, but felt an invisible handle.  Vallium pulled the invisible handle and opened a very well hidden stone door, which led into a ten-foot-wide north-south passage.

The group went south.  After a while they reached a four-way intersection.  They continued for a while through a series of identical looking doors and four-way intersections.  After a while Vael got suspicious, pulled out his chalk, and started writing on the walls.  They proceeded through some doors and found themselves at the intersection with writing, showing that it was probably the same intersection.  They went all four ways and didn't find a way out.  Using Absolute Direction, Vael tried to remember where the secret door had been, and then cast Earth to Air on the wall there.  That made a big enough hole in the wall to show that he had the right place.  They crawled through the hole and went back to the statue room.

The statue's hands would only point north or south, so Vael looked for other interesting features on the statue.  He found that both eyes would depress.  He pushed both at the same time, and the eastern door opened.  This led to some dusty stairs down to the east, then a long windy unfinished cavern passage mostly east, then some finished stairs up.  The stairs led to a room with ten large statues lining the north and south walls.  The statues were all the same middle-aged man, holding a scroll case in one hand and the other hand in a fist above his head.

When Vallium reached the midpoint of the room, the statues all animated and attacked, launching Magical Bolts from their scroll cases at the group.  Vael Blinked away, then used Larel's Cloak to turn invisible.  Ioannes got hit by a couple of bolts, then focused on dodging.  Vallium and Uvash attacked.  Uvash used his Divine Might and Divine Grace to become very fast and strong, then started smashing constructs.  Vallium, weaker than usual due to the effects of Thoth's Pneuma, also smashed constructs, but less effectively than usual.  A couple of the constructs did not dodge attacks, and turned out to be full of poison gas, which was released when they were broken.  However, nobody succumbed to the poison.  Some of the other constructs appeared faster than the others, and preferred bashing with their scroll cases rather than plinking away with Magical Bolts.  Ioannes got bashed hard enough to stagger from his wounds and be at risk of passing out, but Vallium rushed to his defense to parry for him, while Vallium prepared to Blink him out of the way of any attacks.  Ioannes managed to drink a Major Healing potion and end the immediate danger, while Vallium and Uvash finished off the constructs.

At that point the group decided to head back for home.  They went back through the dusty passages to the fireball trap room, then flew back across the chasm, then used the indoor pyramid teleporter to teleport to Upper Goblintown, then flew down the shaft in the floor to the Cloister, where a Rudishva teleporter led to the Beacon.  They had found a mysterious new area and had taken three mysterious magic mirrors, plus some Thothian magical scales.

GM's Comments:

I found it amusing that, in a group with two clerics and a fighter who'd just breathed Thoth's holy pnemua, Vael the non-religious wizard was the one who charged forth to answer Thoth's questions.  But it worked.

This was the third one-way-door trap this group had encountered in Arden Vul.  Without the right magic, they would have been stuck in those intersecting corridors until they died of thirst.  However, with their current set of powers and items, it was just an annoyance rather than a death sentence.

Thoth's Pneuma reducing Vallium's strength made him do significantly less damage than usual.  (Drinking a strength potion was a good counter, but the potion only lasted an hour so it was gone before the big fight.)  However Divine Might made Uvash do more damage than usual, so it mostly cancelled out.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 10 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: They didn't find a lot of items, but those Scales of Thoth and Mirrors of Life Trapping are valuable.  0-2 XP depending on what they choose to sell.
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 1-3 XP

Next Week:

They plan to visit Goblintown and try to commission a Temrin map to the Bone Ring of Jagri-Nas.  Then they went to visit the Hall of Shrines and see if any force fields have changed.  Finally they will go back to the area behind the fireball traps and continue exploring where they left off.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 61: Exploring Rudishva Teleporters

Date:

Basilsday 11th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Hot, sunny

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Ashe "The Goat" Maykum, Goblin Druid (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Fael, Half-elven druid

Onyx, cat

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Mistral, intelligent scimitar

Cers, intelligent scimitar

Stone natarajas

6 Kaliyani

Kunda and The Silent, Khumus adventurers

Gribble, goblin prince

Many goblins

Yoburra, varumani ambassador

Dworm, food merchant

The Plan:

• Explore the Rudishva teleporter network
• Meeting with King Weskenim and try to commission more Temrin maps

What Happened:

Vallium was out sick.

Ioannes hired Fael the druid to cast Speak with Animals so he could converse with his cat Onyx.  Onyx informed him that he was happy with the cat-friendly doors in the Arcane Practitioners' Club, but it was wrong for both Pelteon and Wicktrimmer to go out of town at the same time that Ioannes had to go back to the scary cave, leaving Onyx with nobody to talk to but other cats.  He also said that Wicktrimmer's employees at the Rarities Factor weren't nearly as good at picking fish.

Basil warned Vael that he heard noise from inside one of the chests kept in the bridge of the Beacon.  Vael investigated and found Mistral, the scimitar they had found months ago, yelling that he needed to speak to Vallium.  Told that Vallium was unavailable, he said that he would settle for Ioannes.  Mistral informed Ioannes that he detected the prescence of Cers nearby, that Cers was evil, and that Cers must be melted down.  Vael suggested just throwing him in the slime pit, but Mistral said that Cers was devious and would probably figure out a way to survive that then join up with another evil person.

Vael pulled Cers out of another chest to get its side of the story.  Cers said that it could detect treasure and so was more useful than Mistral.  Also that it wasn't a bad scimitar, it had just been charmed by the vampire Cinna Minux, like half the people and monsters in Arden Vul.  Vael said that if Cers shocked him again he'd go into the slime pit, so Cers promised not to shock him, and Vael put Cers in his belt.

They waited for Uvash and hired Goat at the Grudge Brigade for his animal summoning skills.  Vael made sure everyone had a silver Rudishva identity plaque, then they all took the Rudishva teleporter from the Beacon to the vault near the cloister.  They walked across the cloister and took the teleporter to the translocation hub, where there were three other teleporters, two of them unexplored.  Some stone natarajas started hopping in their general direction, but everyone waved their Rudishva identity plaques and the natarajas went back to their niches.

Goat created a bat swarm, then chose one bat as the special one and cast Beast Possession on it.  Vael hit the button on a teleporter and the bat flew in.  A few minutes later it hadn't returned but Goat hadn't awakened, so Vael followed the bat through the teleporter and saw that it was in a small room they had explored previously, with an iris door that led to some slime zombies.  Vael activated the teleporter for the bat and both returned to the hub.  After making a note on his map, Vael pointed to a second teleporter and sent the bat through.

The bat, inhabited by Goat, visited a Rudishva-architecture room with some orange benches around a small empty hole in the floor.  On the far side of the room was a granite slab, with a lapis inlay, showing a large orb with three smaller orbs surrounding it.  The bat landed on the inlay, and this triggered the slab to start rising.  It was an elevator!  The bat rode it to the top, then a door opened, and the bat flew out into a large octagonal room.  In the room were what looked like several high-tech coffins.  Some looked off or broken.  Others had blinking lights and made humming noises, indicating that they were active.  And they had windows, within which some creatures could be seen, sleeping or dead.  The inhabitants included two Rudishva, some unknown hairless gray humanoid, some kind of rock elemental, some kind of hideous woman with claws, and some kind of black goop.

Goat had the bat avoid touching anything and continue flying south.  There was a chasm there, and at the bottom of the chasm was some kind of spherical mechanical construct.  There were also a few Rudishva corpses down there.  The bat avoided the construct and flew across the chasm to another exit.  This led to a natural passage containing a statue of some kind of bipedal amphibian.  Later, the bat avoided some green slime.  Finally, the passage started sloping it down.  The bat kept following it until Goat ran out of energy to maintain the Beast Possession spell, lost his link to the bat, and woke up, exhausted.

Vael cast Lend Energy on Goat, and Goat selected another bat to possess.  This time he told Ioannes and Vael to keep his energy topped up rather than waiting for it to run out.  He flew the bat into the last teleporter, which revealed a small Rudishva-architecture teleport pod, with two teleporters.  It exited to a room full of a bunch of Rudishva technology, with screens displaying Rudishva glyphs that Goat could not read.  There was an iris door, but the bat lacked the identity plaque to open it.  Eventually Vael went through the teleporter after the bat, and brought it back out.  Then everyone went through.  Vael looked at the screens for a while, then they opened the iris door.

On the other side was a large room, containing many vats.  Some were empty, some contained strange liquids, and three contained varumani, dead or sleeping or comatose.  Vael called Akla-Chah on the Command Bracelet to ask about the room.  She said that was probably the room where the crew of the Beacon grew more varumani after the crash.  Vael asked how to work it, but Akla-Chah lacked details.

Eventually they sent the bat through the second teleporter.  It emerged into a Rudishva-architecture room with a bunk bed, three large metal chests, and a lot of bones and junk on the floor.  The bat exited the room into a huge hallway.  Across the hall was a wall of fire.  Continuing down the hall, it had periodic iris doors, and a few niches high up on the walls.  At the end of the hall was a breached barricade and some bodies.  Near the barricade, a side passage led to a huge water tank.  The bat flew up to explore the tank, and found a couple of humans hiding in the water inside it.

Continuing through a narrow side passage, the Goat-possessed bat saw a group of six six-limbed snakelike beings with two fangs each, with weapons and equipment.  Kaliyani.  One of the kaliyani spotted the bat and threw a javelin, which was lethal.

Goat woke up, back in his own body.  He described what he had seen.  The group then decided to explore the area the bat had scouted.  Vael used a Salamander Amulet to walk through the Wall of Fire, then dropped a Teleport Rug to let the others join him.  Beyond the wall was a camp containing many corpses, mostly human but one kaliyani.  There was also an open chest containing a bunch of silver coins, and some bedrolls and backpacks, and a couple of the bodies were wearing armor.  Looting ensued.  When Vael started picking up silver coins, he didn't feel so great.  There was some kind of contact poison on all the coins.  Uvash picked up the chest, and that was poisoned too.  Fortunately both resisted the poison and felt better a bit later.

Continuing north, Vael turned Goat invisible, then they attempted to ambush the kaliyani squad, who had heard them and simultaneously tried to ambush them.  With nobody surprised, Vael cast Missile Shield on himself while Uvash and Ioannes dove behind cover.  The kaliyani threw a lot of javelins at Vael, who tried to make a good show of dodging them.  Two kaliyani spellcasters tried spells, which failed to affect Vael and Uvash.  Eventually the kaliyani warriors ran out of javelins to throw and closed with their broadswords.

Uvash started fighting.  Meanwhile Vael cast Create Fire and Shape Fire and started harassing the kaliyani with them.  Goat, invisible, finished his long casting of a Create Animal for an elephant, which he tried dropping on the heads of three kaliyani.  Two dodged, but one was squished.  The elephant, which survived its fall, then stood up and start charging and trampling and goring and generally wrecking kaliyani.  One of the kaliyani casters got too close to the wall of fire, so Vael used Shape Air to knock it back.  This was successful, causing the kaliyani to go into the wall and burn a lot.

Eventually Uvash and the elephant finished off the last kaliyani.  The party looted the bodies, then picked up javelins from all over the room.  Finally, Vael remembered that Thegn Varboka had a reward for kaliyani fangs, so they ripped all the kaliyani fangs out.  The summoned elephant timed out.  So did the Wall of Fire.

With the kaliyani menace eliminated, the group headed west to the big water tank.  Vael cast Walk on Air on Uvash, so they could both Levitate and/or Walk to the top.  The two humans were not immediately visible, but then Vael spotted one hiding under the water.  Various gestures eventually got them to surface and talk.  Only one of them, a very slim person dressed all in black, did all the talking.  She said that most of their group had been killed by the snake creatures and their line of retreat was blocked by creepy bird creatures, so they were hiding here.  Vael pulled out the kaliyani fangs and explained that it was safe now, and they could get them back to Gosterwick if they could follow directions.  After a bit of discussion, the two climbed down a rope from the tank and went back to the site of the battle with the kaliyani.  They mentioned that someone had looted their companions, but nobody admitted doing it.

Vael said that if they'd agree to be blindfolded and to say the right command words, they could be teleported out.  Some gesturing revealed that one of the pair didn't like to talk, but he eventually agreed to try to say the command words.  After both were blindfolded, Uvash went through a Teleport Rug, then took both Rugs from Akla-Chah's lounge to the entrance stairway where there was less to see.  Vael then had each of the people say the command word to go through the Rug to the Beacon, then Uvash had them say the second word to go through the other Rug to the Arcane Practitioners' Club, then they led them out.  Vael gave each of the adventurers some silver.

Vael and Uvash went back through the Rugs, and Ioannes suggested taking the Goat to the Goblin Forum, since Gribble had been asking about him.  They went back through some teleporters and flew up through the shaft near the slime pool outside the cloister, then took the stairs down from the former Temple of Set to the Forum.  There, all the goblins were exited to see Goat.  One of the guards went to get Gribble from his quarters.  Gribble asked Goat to please drop another elephant on the evil Set statue to break more of it into small commemorative chunks.  With dozens of goblins and several varumani ambassadors watching, Goat did another elephant drop.  Once the elephant was safely gone, the goblins swarmed the broken statue to gather relics.  Vael briefly talked to the varumani ambassador.  The group then decided that was enough exploration for one day, and went back to the Beacon.

GM's Comments:

When a player wants to drop elephants on things, you can spend a lot of time doing physics.  It's not worth it.  Just treat it as a slam attack.

Achievements:

The Rescuers: 1 XP for getting Kunda and The Silent out

XP:

• Exploration: 16 rooms, 1 XP
• Treasure: Some, but not a lot.  Mostly the kaliyani's stuff.  1 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

Exploring teleporters has revealed several new areas, so they have a lot of choices of where to explore.  They also still want to visit Goblintown to talk to King Weskenim about a map, and the Court of the Varumani Thegn to get a reward for those kaliyani fangs.  I have no idea what they'll choose.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 60b: Killing Cinna Minux

Date:

Basilsday 4th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, stormy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Cinna Minux, vampire

Brenna Three-Braids, vampire

Joshuel the Binder, vampire mage

Elliana, human thrall of Cinna Minux

Bestial varumani thrall of Cinna Minux

6 Ghouls

6 Chasm cephalopods

Roper

6 Shadows

The Plan:

• Kill the vampires

What Happened:

We resumed in mid-battle, with Cinna Minux and Brenna Three-Braids fleeing in gaseous form.  The only opponents still fighting were Joshuel the vampire mage, Elliana the warrior thrall, and one random bestial varumani.  Vallium and Uvash took Elliana and the varmuani down, and then Joshuel decided the odds were not in his favor and assumed gaseous form to flee.

Uvash still had Great Haste running, so he was able to keep up with the flying gaseous vampires for a while.  Cinna, Brenna, and Joshuel split up and went three different ways.  Uvash chased Brenna, and hit her several times with his pick, but in gaseous form she was diffuse and didn't take much damage.  She eventually escaped up the spiral staircase, formerly guarded by ogres and varumani.  Vael wanted to cast Trace on Cinna, but didn't have line of sight.

The Right for Riches company eventually gave up the chase.  Vael case Seeker on Cinna, and got a vision of him resting in a sarcophagus, in a room full of stuff.  He followed up with Trace, and found that the room was about 70 yards southeast.  They headed south and east.  One room contained six ghouls.  They tried to ambush the party, but got chopped up.

After a lot of searching for secret doors in the direction where Cinna was, Vael tried Glass Wall, and saw that there was a fairly thin wall at the end of a dead-end corridor, leading to Cinna's room.  Vael asked everyone else to step through a Teleport Rug, then Blinked through the wall, then dropped the Rug on the floor.  The others came through immediately.  Vael sensed that Cinna was in the ornate sarcophagus in the south end of the room.  Uvash cast Protection from Evil on Vallium.  Vallium took a Rudishva Pep Pill, and then Uvash and Vallium pulled the lid off the sarcophagus.

Cinna, apparently fully healed, sat up and immediately tried to Charm Vallium again, but the combination of Protection from Evil and Vallium's Luck let Vallium resist.  Uvash and Vallium then started attacking Cinna.  Cinna jumped out of the sarcophagus and started parrying most of the blows, but took a couple of hard ones.  One lucky shot knocked Cinna unconscious, and it was all over.  They took off his Imperial Field Plate armor, then Vallium held a stake near Cinna's heart while Uvash pounded it in.  Deciding that wasn't enough, Vallium then cut off Cinna's head.  Deciding that still wasn't enough, they dragged Cinna's body away from any treasure, took off all his remaining equipment, then Vael used Create Fire to incinerate it.  Nobody was quite sure of the right way to kill a vampire, but staking plus decapitation plus immolation seemed good enough.

The room was full of treasures, including a magical bed, some fancy furniture, and several books.  While Vael and Ioannes sat down to rest, Vallium and Uvash started carrying stuff out through the Rug.  Both Vallium and Vael tried picking up Cinna's magical scimitar, but it shocked both of them, so Vael ended up using Apportation to take it without touching it again.

There was one locked door out of the room.  Vallium tried his whole collection of keys, but none fit.  Vael opened it with a Lockmaster spell, but behind the door was a huge pile of rubble, which started spilling into the room when they opened the door.  Vael considered Shape Earth to remove the rubble, but it would have taken a lot of time, so they just left the rubble, and went out of the room the same way they came in, with the Rug and a Blink spell.

They went to the previously found room with two coffins, but the other vampires weren't there.  Vael cast Earth to Air on the dirt in both coffins to try to make the area less hospitable to the vampires.  They explored the rest of the previous vampire lair, and took the head of a Horus statue from the dining room.  They also found a statue of Wadjet with a snake head.  The snake bit Uvash and gave him a minor cut and Protection from Evil.  Vallium and Ioannes both followed Uvash's lead and took minor cuts for protection spells, but Vael did not want to participate.

Next they went up the spiral stairs where Brenna had fled.  They found a finished stone room but no sign of the vampire.  A passage south led to a door south and passages east and west.  They went west, and found a room with a couple of concentric circles on the floor.  A door west led to a larger room.  As Vallium crossed the center of the room, he felt a minor electric shock, not enough to hurt him.  He warned the others, and Uvash cast Resist Lightning on everyone before they continued.

Another door to the west led to a cavern, with a chasm, crossed by a bridge.  There were three skeletons on the ground, with some equipment including a magic rope.  After looting the skeletons, they went south to some dead-end passages and found some more skeletons and a magic coffer, which they took.  Going back north, they crossed the bridge, but halfway across they were ambushed by 6 chasm cephalopods.  After a few seconds, four of the cephalopods were dead, and the last two floated back down into the chasm.

Vael announced that they should check out the chasm, so he and Vallium Levitated down.  The chasm was about 50 to 60 feet deep, and they didn't find anything interesting in it.  They did spot a rough passage heading east, so they used the Rug to bring the others over that way.

Vallium led the group east through a dry cave, and got ambushed by a roper hanging on the ceiling.  It dropped toward him while extruding sticking tentacle ropes.  He stabbed it, several times, hard, and it died.  Vael remembered that the last roper they'd killed had had gems in its gullet, so Uvash and Vallium immediately started sawing the body apart.  They found four gems and a whole lot of disgusting roper guts.

To the east of the cave was a finished passage, ending in a door.  Beyond the door was a tomb, with a looted sarcophagus on the floor, labeled "Grenfell the Great."  It looked like other tomb robbers had gotten there first, as there was no body nor any treasure.  However, Vael used See Invisible and spotted a large bulge in the ceiling.  Levitating up, he found an invisible sarcophagus there, with an ebony lid on the bottom.  He tried opening the lid, but it was too heavy.  He asked Vallium to come up and showed him where to grab and pull.  Vallium did, and ripped the lid open.  Everything in the sarcophagus -- a mummified corpse, two alabaster urns full of coins, a gold statuette, a magic helmet, a scroll, and two magic wands -- fell to the floor, with the urns and statuette breaking.  However, that was a secondary concern, as the sarcophagus also contained six shadows.  Three of them attacked Vallium, while the others attacked Vael, Uvash, and Ioannes.

The battle against the shadows took a long time, as they were diffuse and thus difficult to injure.  Vallium and Uvash eventually each destroyed one.  Vael declined to fight and instead Blinked away, then went over to Ioannes and cast Great Haste on him.  Fast Ioannes then disengaged from his shadow and cast Affect Spirits on Uvash's pick and later Vallium's sword.  The Affect Spirits spell made the shadows take full damage from attacks, and then the remaining shadows went down very quickly.

The group picked up all the coins that had spilled out of the broken urns, as well as the other treasure.  Vallium cast a Repair spell on the bashed gold statuette, making it as good as new.  They then retraced their steps back to the Beacon.

GM's Comments:

That was a lot of combat.  There were six different fights: finishing up the fight against the vampire minions, the ghouls, Cinna Minux in his lair, the cephalopods, the roper, and the shadows.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 24 rooms (across 2 sessions), 2 XP
• Loot: Lots, and they sold enough for 2 XP
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 4 XP

Next Week:

Vallium is unavailable, so they probably need to find a less violent plan.  They found a book with pictures of the Regalia, so there was talk of trying to get Temrin to make more maps.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 60a: Hunting the Vampires

Date:

Basilsday 4th Lucrios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, stormy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

3 Imp clowns

Invisible stalker

Many varumani

2 Baindara

2 Ogre cooks

Varboka, Thegn of the Varumani

Ashoka, Varumani Court Sorceror

Coelrith, Goblin Alchemist

Jordan, Jeweler

Cinna Minux, vampire

Lesser vampires

Human, ogre, and varumani thralls of vampires

The Plan:

• Take the petrified head of Kerbog Khan to Thegn Varboka for the reward
• Go northwest and kill the vampires

What Happened:

The Right for Riches company took a Rudishva teleporter from the Beacon, worked their way east to the Great Chasm, and then took the Varumani Lifts down to the Arena then the stairs down to the area east of varumani territory.  They encountered some varumani, who asked to see their passports, then let them pass.  They spent some time investigating two large stone chairs, one with a Rudishva glyph on the seat, the other with the glyph apparently scraped away.  Vael sat on one and found that it dispelled one of his spells.  He then cast Analyze Magic to find that the chair had Dispel Magic, Healing, and Apportation magic.

After they finished playing with the chairs, the group went north and down to another level, and entered a large cave with a 40' sheer cliff drop in front of them.  To their right was a crook holding a large bell, and at the base of the cliff was a similar bell.  There was a Mithric poem near the bell: 

"Five for the furious

Four for some fun

Three for trouble

Two to be spun

And One? One is for the lonely"

After some discussion, Vael rang the bell twice, and was teleported to the other bell at the base of the cliff.  He then rang that one twice, and appeared back at the top.  Next he tried four rings, which caused three imps in clown costumes to appear.  They did some entertaining dances and card tricks for a few minutes, then held out a hat, looking for a tip.  Everyone except Uvash gave them some gold, but Uvash did not, so the imps attacked him.  At that point Vallium and Uvash killed two of the imps, and the third disappeared.  Ioannes and Uvash spent some time yelling at each other about this result.

The other options looked less appealing.  But Vael eventually rang the bell three times, and then an invisible stalker appeared and tried to push him off the cliff.  Fortunately for Vael, he had a See Invisible spell running, so he saw it coming.  And he also had a Levitation spell on, so pushing him off the cliff would have only been a minor annoyance.  Finally, he had a Blink spell, so when the stalker approached he just blinked away.  Vael then cast See Invisible on Vallium, so that Vallium could more effectively hit it.  Vallium then stabbed the invisible stalker a lot, while Uvash tried to help, but without being able to see it, wasn't fully effective.  Ioannes cast Affect Spirits on Vallium's sword, but it didn't seem to help him hurt the diffuse invisible stalker more effectively.  He eventually killed or dispelled it.

Deciding that was enough playing with the bells, the group went back up the sloping passage to the varumani level, then went northwest, to a guardpost manned by four varumani and their two baindara pets.  The baindara looked like monkeys, except with small horns and wings like flying squirrels.  They showed their passports to the guards, who let them pass.

Not sure exactly where to go, the group headed west, then opened a few doors at random.  One was a kitchen, with two ogre cooks cooking, and a Rudishva Nutri-Vore food dispensing machine that was turned off.  One was a storeroom full of food, but they didn't take anything.  One appeared to be the quarters of some varumani hunters, who did not appreciate the intrusion.

Continuing west, they found a north-south passage with crude statues of several varumani, with glyphs probably indicating their names.  Some of the statues were decorated with clothing or paint, and one had a human-sized head with a gilded helmet by its feet.

To the south was a large round room with three stone chairs, with Thegn Varboka sitting in the central one, and many varumani standing around waiting to get his attention.  When they entered the room the varumani indicated that they needed to move to the end of the line, but then Varboka saw them and dismissed most of the varumani from the room to give them a private audience, with only Varboka and his court wizard and a few guards remaining.  Varboka asked if the job was done.  Vael said yes.  Varboka asked to see proof, and Vallium pulled out Kerbog Khan's petrified head.  Varboka and the wizard examined the head, then Varboka asked to hear the story of how it happened.  Vael launched into a long and overly complicated tale.  Varboka seemed to believe it, and asked how many power supplies Kerbog Khan had.  Vallium said there were twenty-nine, which was an odd number, and thus difficult to divide evenly.  The party said they'd give Varboka fifteen.  They also said they could charge power supplies, so Varboka would give them an empty one to verify this.  Vael showed Varboka and the wizard the list of Kerbog Khan's blood samples and asked which ones were the Thegn's subjects, so they could return those ones.  The wizard marked the Varumani names on the list.

Varboka asked which reward they would like, and they asked for a repeat of the choices, so the Thegn repeated from memory the items in his hoard that they could choose from.  A long discussion ensured.  Vael asked if they could see just how magical a shield was before picking it, and the Thegn agreed and left the room to the west with a couple of his guards, returning a few minutes later with a guard holding a shield.  Vael spent some time casting Analyze Magic, concluding that the shield was useful but not amazing.  The party failed to choose a reward, asking for the Thegn's permission to choose later.  They also said they would return with the Thegn's share of the power supplies.

With the discussion concluded, the Thegn left, and the party went wandering looking for the exit.  They went north and west and found a porch overlooking the Varumani Market, but a guard yelled at them to get off the Thegn's porch, so they retreated.  They wandered into some apprentice's quarters and had a minor disagreement, ending with a Thunderclap spell.  Ashoka the Court Sorceror came to see what all the noise was about, and told one of the apprentices to escort them to the market.  He took them back to the Thegn's Porch, so they could Levitate across to the market.  The guard started yelling again, but the apprentice said they had Ashoka's permission, which shut the guard up.  Vael cast Walk on Air on the people without Levitation activate so that everyone could cross to the Market.

In the Varumani market, they visited the alchemist and failed to buy or sell any potions.  They then visited the jeweler and failed to buy or sell any jewelry.  They decided not to waste any more time failing to buy or sell anything in any of the other stalls, and continued west to a known area, then west through a cavern, then north to the outskirts of the vampire area.  A bestial varumani warned them not to go that way, but they ignored him.

They found a room that appeared to be a temple to Ptah, the old god of agriculture.  It contained a statue of Ptah and a small field of corn and wheat, growing well despite the lack of sunlight.  Ioannes poked around a bit, then they left.

The spiral staircase formerly guarded by ogres with a cowbell was now guarded by five bestial varumani with a gong.  One ran away to the west, yelling about "intrusers!" in broken Archontean.  The other four stood to fight.  Vallium and Uvash cut three of them down, while another decided to run away and help warn about the "intrusers."  The party followed the fleeing varumani to the west, where they had previously encountered the suspected vampires.

In the same room as before, there were several pale people and a few ogres and varumani.  The leader spoke charmingly about how disappointed he was that these intruders had rudely declined his dinner invitation and killed his guards and his other guards and his other guards and now these new guards, and robbed his friends.  He regretted that they had to die now.  He then told Vallium that he really needed to switch to the winning team and stab his former friends.  Vallium resisted the Charm attempt.

The party moved forward into position, as the varumani and ogres and the vampires' human thralls moved up to meet them.  Meanwhile, all three vampires repeatedly tried Charm.  Vallium was their main target.  He resisted several times, thanks in part to the Protection from Evil that Uvash had cast on him.  He almost failed to resist once, but his Bless saved him.  The vampires also tried Charming Uvash and Ioannes, but they were not affected.  Vael was invisible, thanks to Larel's Cloak, so was not targeted.

As the fight began, Vael Great Hasted Vallium then Uvash, and Uvash used his Heroic Might and Heroic Grace.  They quickly carved through the ogres and most of the bestial varumani.  The human warriors more skilled and better equipped, but Vallium killed one of them.  Vallium and Uvash gravely wounded the lead vampire, Cinna Minux, and one of the lesser vampires, both of whom assumed gaseous form and fled.  Vallium was badly wounded in turn, but Ioannes healed him.

When we ran out of time, the combat was still ongoing.  Team Vampire had a lesser vampire wizard Levitating in the air blasting Vallium with a Wand of Magical Bolt.  They also had a female human warrior with a morningstar and a bestial varumani still standing.   The Right for Riches company was still in pretty good shape, with Vallium somewhat wounded and no longer Blessed.

GM's Comments:

I predicted that the players would take forever to pick a reward from the Thegn.  I thought they would actually pick one though.  "No, we're good, maybe later" was not on my bingo card.

The fight against the vampires was a big one, so I was not surprised that it wasn't finished by the end of the session.  But there were only three opponents left standing when we ran out of time, so maybe it would have been possible to finish with slightly better time management earlier in the session.

Achievements:

None

XP:

We stopped in the dungeon, so none yet.  So far, they have done well on exploration but have found no loot.

Next Week:

Next session should start with the thrilling conclusion of the fight against Cinna Minux's remaining minions.  Cinna Minux and a lesser vampire turned to gas and fled.  Vael has already announced that he intends to use Trace to follow Cinna Minux.  We'll see if that works.

Ruling: Using Wall of Lightning as direct damage on large creatures

The GURPS Wall of Lightning spell is an Area spell.  You create a Wall of Lightning along the perimeter of an Area.  Anyone crossing the Wall then takes electrical damage.

As written, it's clearly not intended as immediate damage.  You can't cast the Wall inside someone, only along hex edges.

There's an edge case here: if someone is larger than one hex, then there's a hex edge that bisects their body.  Can you cast the Wall so that it's in the area that's half inside and half outside of them, and thus use it as direct damage?

Previous ruling: This is obviously cheesy and counter to the intent of the spell, but I can't find a strict textual case against it, so fine.

Current ruling: This is obviously cheesy and counter to the intent of the spell, and not allowed.  If you try casting Wall of Lightning to bisect a creature, it will either just fail, or possibly bisect the caster instead, whichever is funnier.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 59: Choumnos and Kerbog

Date:

Basilsday 27th of Toternios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Warm, stormy

Player Characters:

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

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Many goblins

Ptoh-Ristus, formerly Ichthelon, Mummy High Priest of Thoth

Remagis, Assistant to the High Priest of Thoth

Stamelis, Head Librarian of Thoth

Basil Chaumnos, statue, formerly Castellan of Pol

Several Dragonfly Automata of Kerbog Khan

Kerbog Khan, archmage

The Plan:

• Use Stone to Flesh on the statue of Basil Chaumnos
• Interrogate Basil Chaumnos about Kerbog Khan and the Tower of Pol
• Kill Kerbog Khan

What Happened:

Vael read the recently found Powered Scroll of Limited Wish on his signet ring, giving the party a total of two Limited Wish items.  He also bought some garlic at the Gosterwick Demmasday Market.

Ioannes cast Bless on Uvash.  He also used Gift of Letters on the scroll that the others found last week, which revealed some clues about finding the Treasury of Thoth, which were timely because the Five Fingers of Destiny already found it.

The Right for Riches Company teleported through the Rug of Instant Access to the Beacon, then took one of the Rudishva teleporters there to the Cloister, then got a bit lost and doubled back through some other teleporters but eventually found their way to the Temple of Thoth.  There they found that Ichthelon the Mummy was wearing the Death Mask of Ptoh-Ristus and was now calling himself Ptoh-Ristus.  He asked if the group had encountered any heqeti, and said that Lord Thoth had demanded the extinction of all heqeti.  Vael said they had not, but wondered if the Chuch of Thoth could help with Kerbog Khan.  Ptoh-Ristus said that he would ask Lord Thoth if that was a good idea.

The group went down the stairs to the Drowned Canyon.  Vael used Lockmaster to unlock the grating, and they walked over to the statue of the dueling wizards Basil Choumnos and Gemma of Arcturos.  Ioannes placed the Collar of Servitude around the neck of the statue of Choumnos.  Vael read the scroll of Stone to Flesh.  The statue turned into Basil Choumnos.  He started asking questions, but Ioannes commanded him to not talk, or move, or cast spells, or do anything else.  Choumnos froze and everyone asked him a ridiculous number of questions.  Choumnos pointed to his mouth and Ioannes indicated that he was allowed to talk now, just to answer questions.  Choumnos explained that he had been the Castellan of the Tower of Pol for about 37 years, ever since he defeated the former Castellan, Gemma.  But then Kerbog Khan had challenged him to a magical duel for the Tower, and had cast some kind of death spell that had ripped Choumnos's guts out, so now Kerbog Khan was the Castellan and Choumnos was a statue.  They asked a lot of questions about the Tower and the challenge ritual.  After getting all the answers, they decided they didn't want the Tower, and Choumnos could have it back, after they looted it.

The plan they formulated was to have Choumnos wait here near the pentagram teleporter while they snuck up near the tower through the back entrance.  They would then sent Choumnos a Message spell, and he would use the pentagram to teleport to the Tower and alert Kerbog Khan to his presence, then challenge him.  And then while Kerbog Khan was making his way to the dueling pit, the group would ambush him and kill him, and then have Choumnos give them a tour of the Tower of Pol while they looted anything not nailed down, and then they would take the collar off Choumnos and let him have the Tower back.

After another long trip around the Halls of Arden Vul through some teleporters, they found their way outside the Tower of Pol.  Vael wandered ahead of the group, and got attacked by one of Kerbog Khan's dragonfly automata.  The dragonfly was no great threat, but Kerbog Khan was inhabiting it, and cast a death spell.  Vael managed to resist it, using his Luck.  Vallium ran up and threw the Returning Javelin at the dragonfly and eventually destroyed it, but not until Kerbog Khan got a couple more spells off, using Uvash's Luck and a charge from Vallium's Scarab of Protection.  At that point Vael cast Message and told Choumnos to come over.

Choumnos appeared in the pentagram, and then Kerbog Khan appeared near the dueling pit, asking if Choumnos really wanted to challenge him.  Choumnos said yes, and both headed for the pit.  Vallium also headed toward the pit, while fast-drawing a Dagger of Venom.  He threw the Dagger of Venom at Kerbog Khan's face, while using the Ring of One Wish Left to declare a critical hit.  The Dagger penetrated Kerbog Khan's face armor, injecting some poison.  Vallium then used the Ring of Limited Wish that Vael had just made from the scroll to declare that Kerbog Khan would be critically failing his resistance roll against the poison.  Kerbog Khan monologued for a few seconds about cheaters using magic they couldn't actually cast, then dropped dead, then disappeared.  A key (which Choumnos identified as a focus item for the Pol's Recall spell) appeared in the dueling pit.  Choumnos started Levitating over to pick it up, but Vallium and Ioannes both yelled at him not to touch it.

Everyone who could fly flew up to the roof of the Tower.  They dropped a rope so that Ioannes and Uvash could climb up.  Choumnos spotted another dragonfly automaton and blasted it with several Magical Bolts until it crashed.  Vael tried opening the trap door on the roof, but it was locked.  He tried Lockmaster, but it was still locked.  He tried a couple more times, then said that Kerbog Khan's Magelock was too strong, but it would probably expire in a few hours.  They rested for a few minutes, then Vael cast Shape Earth to cover up the key, then they ordered Choumnos to stand guard, while they went through the pentagram teleporter to check on the statues.

The statues of dueling wizards had changed.  The eastern statue was still Gemma, but the western statue was now Kerbog Khan.  Vallium chopped the statue in half, which took several blows with his magic sword.  The top half was inconveniently heavy to carry, so Vael used Shape Earth to separate the head from the upper torso.  They took the head, and went back through the pentagram teleporter to the Tower of Pol.

After a few hours of waiting for Kerbog Khan's Magelock to expire, and Choumnos shooting down a couple more dragonfly automata, Vael finally managed to open the trap door.  Choumnos led the group down into his former tower.  The top floor had four teleporters, which Choumnos indicated led to the Astral Plane, the City of Brass, the capital city of Archontos, and the roof of the Tower of Scrutiny in the Ruins of Arden Vul.  It also had an interesting high-tech chamber which Choumnos said was his bed, attached to a large Rudishva power supply.  There was an alchemy lab, and a chest containing a few magical items that Choumnos said were dangerous.  The party took a couple of the items.

The next level down had a regular double bed, a bunch of bookshelves containing three spellbooks (Choumnos's, Gemma's, and Pol's), many other books, and a magical chest.  Choumnos said that the books would disappear if taken out of the Tower, so should only be read here.  He also said that the chest could create more coins, but if it were completely emptied it would become non-magical.  Vael made a list of all the books in the library, but didn't take any, except for Gemma's spellbook.  They took most of the coins out of the chest, telling Choumnos that this was the fee for Stone to Flesh.

The bottom level had a bunch of containers of preserved food and some racks full of weapons and armor, some of it magical.  The visitors took all the weapons and armor.  When they were done, they went back up to the roof of the Tower, then flew over to the dueling pit, then told Choumnos he could take the collar off.  He used Lockmaster to unlock it, then removed it, then was a bit angry he had been charmed.  He said that he wanted to keep the collar so they could not use it on him again.  Vallium declined, saying to give it back, but that he could have the key to the Tower and regain his role as Castellan.  Choumnos reluctantly dropped the collar, then picked up the key, and disappeared.  Vael sent him a Message spell, saying they needed to talk more.  Choumnos sent a Message back, then eventually appeared on the roof of the Tower so they could yell back and forth.

The group eventually left, teleporting through the pentagram.  They went back to the broken statue of Kerbog Khan.  Vael cast Repair on the statue, which restored it, and caused the severed stone head they were carrying to disappear.  He then removed the head (again) using Shape Earth, and then Uvash cast Stone to Flesh on the rest of the statue.  Kerbog Khan's body died again, but this time it was a bit more intact, so they looted his equipment.

Leaving Kerbog Khan's thrice-killed body behind, they explored to the east.  They found a ledge about 20' high.  Flying and climbing up, they found a mosaic of a knot on the floor.  While Vael was examining it, a huge gray ooze dropped from the ceiling and tried to eat him.  Fortunately, Vael sensed it coming and Blinked away.  Vallium and Uvash attacked the ooze, with Vallium using a disposable knife instead of his good sword to avoid damaging it with acid, and Uvash forgetting about the acid and risking his magical mace.  Vael used Wall of Lightning to shock the wounded ooze.  The ooze escaped the Wall and chased Vael, but he threw another Wall of Lightning at it, and this one knocked it unconscious, and then continued shocking it until it was surely dead.

Vael searched the area for secret doors, and didn't find any, but did find three corpses in matching blue surcoats, with a couple of scrolls and a potion.  Leaving the ledge, the group headed north and found some large stone double doors.  They were locked, and after Vael used Lockmaster, they still would not open.  Vael used Glass Wall to look through the doors, and saw a small room containing a corpse.  They discussed whether to Blink through, but decided not to, and headed back home.

GM's Comments:

Kerbog Khan is dead.  Two Limited Wishes was an expensive way to kill him, but it worked.  Basil Choumnos is the Castellan of Pol again; time will tell how much of a grudge he holds for being temporarily enslaved with the Collar of Servitude.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 5 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: There was a lot, both in the Tower of Pol and on Kerbog Khan.  1-2 XP depending on what they sell
• Achievements: 0 XP

Next Week:

The Right for Riches company plans to visit Thegn Varboka of the Varumani to collect the reward for killing Kerbog Khan.  If possible, they would like to keep his stone head, to try to get more rewards from others.  They then plan to deal with the vampires to the northwest of the Varumani territory.