Date:
2018-12-14
Weather:
Unseasonably warm, melting snow
Player Characters:
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 294 pointsIbizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 287 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 271 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 305 points
Significant NPCs:
Iolas, Elf Musical Craftswoman
Vulgaris, Minyad Druid
5 Derro
4 Cave Fishers
After a hard week of training, everyone except Elias (who had church duty) met at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake in Cillamar, to recap their week. Seépravir had tried researching a Druidic planar gate in the mushroom forest, and found tales of a "great forest" with gates to it from other forests, but nothing specifically underground or under Castle Whiterock. Zaber had started using Propaganda skill to spread nasty rumors about Lord Flitwick, who was still out of town, wintering somewhere to the south. Polly had purchased a whole lot of arrows, after some fungal rot had somehow gotten into her quiver during last session's fight in the mushroom farm.
Polly remembered that they still needed to finish the jade harp, to match the jade flute and jade drum and possibly free the air elemental trapped in the organ. So everyone went to see Iolas, the only maker of musical instruments on the Street of Craftsmen, to commission her to make a harp, using the magical jade harp strings they had found in the baby red dragon's hoard. Iolas was happy for the business, asked a few questions about the type of harp they wanted, took half the money up front, and told them to come back in a week. Unfortunately none of the PCs actually know how to play a harp. They looked for Brie the bard, who sometimes plays lute in the Inn, but she wasn't around.
Having done everything they could think of doing in town, the group headed for Castle Whiterock. It was an unseasonably warm day for winter, with a lot of the recent snow starting to melt. They did not make great time hiking through the slush, but nothing bothered them.
Once they reached the castle, Seépravir cast a bunch of buffing spells, and the group headed back down through the dungeon to the level where they defeated the mushroom farmer and her brood of elementals last time. When they got there, she spotted them, and held up her hands and asked to parley. They had a long conversation, where they established that her name was Vulgaris, that she was a minyad (kind of like a dryad but with underground crystal veins instead of above ground trees), that the fight was a horrible misunderstanding because the group had trespassed on her territory and her guard elementals weren't that smart, that she was thankful that they had spared her life, that she would like her edged rapier back, and that she'd be happy to trade various fungus with the PCs, in exchange for green slime or possibly other things. Seépravir let her know diplomatically that she wasn't getting her sword back, and made a very pursuasive argument, so Vulgaris agreed to shut up about getting her rapier back but expressed interest in trading for another one like it. She also mentioned that there were crazy people to the west. Upon further questioning, she said they were derro, which are a species of small insane underground humanoids. Zaber tried hitting on the minyid (who was quite beautiful in an inhuman way) but she either didn't notice or pretended not to.
Not having any green slime or spare edged rapiers to trade, and wanting to get Zaber away from Vulgaris and her mushrooms, the group decided to go west and see about the derro. Zaber and Polly moved west down a natural-looking tunnel, into a cave that contained a large basket suspended by cables, and a large wheel connected to the cables. It looked like an elevator going up, maybe the bottom end of the same elevator they had found months ago, in the secret room occupied by a duergar, on the slaver orcs' level. But before they had time to play with the elevator, they spotted a small humanoid with a crossbow to the north, who spotted them in return and ran away to the north while yelling gibberish. Polly tried to yell something friendly, to no effect.
Zaber and Polly rejoined Seépravir and Garreth, and Seépravir cast Missile Shield on Polly. Polly advanced again, this time with much less fear of crossbow bolts, while Zaber climbed the wall to see if that gave him a better view. It let him see an underground river to the north, with three skiffs beached on it, but the derro was now out of sight, either hiding behind something or beyond Dark Vision range. Polly moved forward enough to see three little guys with crossbows and mail, spread out into a skirmish line. She kept moving forward fearlessly, and stepped onto an unseen patch of magical Grease, but didn't slip.
Eventually one of the waiting enemies cackled insanely and ran out of patience and fired at Polly, and automatically missed because of the Missile Shield. At that point Polly started shooting back, Garreth started running forward holding the magical returning spear that they'd taken from a dead troglodyte, and Seépravir readied a Concussion spell. The derro were over 30 yards away, pretty long range for a dungeon battle, so everyone had pretty big hit penalties. Polly didn't particularly care, as she's really good with a bow, and got some hits in. Seépravir didn't really care either, because she just had to get her Concussion within 10 yards of some enemies to have a chance to stun them, which she managed, stunning one and totally deafening another. Garreth got a bit closer before attacking.
The derro might have been smart enough to figure out the Missile Shield (the PCs couldn't be sure as they didn't understand whatever language the derro spoke), as they concentrated their crossbow fire on Garreth rather than Polly. Garreth is good at dodging, though, and wasn't hit. Polly started showing off by aiming at eyes, choosing a stunned derro first. He failed to dodge, the arrow blew through the eye into the brain, and did massive damage. Somehow the derro survived several death checks, but the major wound check on a brain hit is at -10, and he was knocked unconscious.
By this point the Garreth and Polly had advanced far enough to see two more derro on the flanks, for a total of five (with four still standing). One of them appeared to Concentrate on a spell, which immediately drew Polly's attention, and she started aiming her arrows that way. Seépravir lobbed another Concussion into an area with three of the four standing derro, and stunned another one. (The one that had been totally deafened by critically failing its first HT check against Concussion actually benefitted from its deafness, with +5 to its roll against this one.) Garreth got close enough to lob his spear at the easternmost derro, but it dodged. The derro kept firing their crossbows, quite quickly, but missed a lot and had the few accurate shots dodged.
Garreth ran forward as his spear returned to him, and caught it out of the air. By this point he was pretty close to his target, so he decided to Slam rather than use the spear. I told him that he could slam with a spear in his hands, though it's a two-minute penalty for cross-checking. Garreth rolled a critical hit on the slam, and the derro was knocked both prone and backwards, and dropped its weapon.
The derro spellcaster cast Daze on Polly, but it was far enough away that the range penalty caused the spell to fail. Garreth fast-drew his katana and killed the prone derro with it. Polly shot one stunned derro in the eye, knocking it out. She then fired at the derro caster, who rolled a critical fail on his dodge, freezing and watching the arrow fly into his eye, and knocking him out too. At that point all the derro were knocked out or killed, and the fight was over.
Zaber started looting bodies, finding some nice repeating crossbows (where did these crazy guys get those?) and mail armor and a few coins. Garreth made sure all the unconscious derro were dead, though that probably would have happened on its own pretty soon, seeing how they all had blood pouring out of their brains through their eye sockets. Everyone saw a small save to the west, and a waterfall up to the northwest, flowing into the underground river. Seépravir climbed into one of the boats beached along the shore to rest, while Polly and Zaber went to check out the cave, and Garreth kept an eye on Seépravir.
The cave contained some small bedrolls, a stone table surrounded by rocks that might have been makeshift chairs, a cask surrounded by tankards on the ground, and a chest. Like any proper PC, Zaber immediately made a beeline for the chest. It had three locks, one of which featured a poison needle trap, which he found and disarmed. He then picked all three locks and triumphantly opened the chest, which had nothing inside. Not believing this, a lot of looking for invisible contents and false bottoms and things hidden behind the chest ensued, to no avail. Apparently one of the derro was trolling his killers from the grave.
After they finally gave up on the chest, the group started on the cask, which was half-full of some kind of ale. This made Zaber feel a bit better about the empty chest, and he decided to start swilling directly from the cask. It was some kind of dwarf ale with mushrooms, not too bad. But, also, there was a thump, like there was something solid inside the cask. Polly didn't really want to drink from a dirty tankard, and so carried one over to the river to wash it. Garreth heard there was ale and so abandoned his wizard guard duty to come get some, and also keep Zaber from drinking too much of it and impairing his thief abilities. After they finished drinking, they opened up the cask and found a stoppered bottle inside, which contained a note, with apparently three words in a language nobody knew. So they kept that and kept searching.
After a few minutes, Seépravir was done resting, so she walked up and cast Seek Magic. Which pointed to something magic under one of the stone chairs. Zaber searched under the chair and found a dark wood box and a pouch. The pouch contained some coins and green gems. The box was magic. Much playing with the box ensued, none of it working. Seépravir cast Lockmaster on the box, and it briefly popped open, showing that it was bigger on the inside than the outside, then snapped shut again. Polly thought it might be a folding boat, and dipped it in the river, but this didn't make it open. At that point the group decided that the box could wait until they were back in town, and decided to play with the elevator instead.
The elevator basket was attached to the wheel by cables wound through pulleys. Polly turned the wheel to the left, and the elevator went up. She turned the wheel to the right, and the elevator went back down. Having figured out this advanced technology, Polly and Zaber got in the basket, and Garreth started spinning the wheel. After a while, Polly and Zaber reached the secret room several levels up where they killed the ogre elevator operator. That room had its own wheel, and now contained two elevator baskets. They searched the secret room for evidence that it had been disturbed recently. They found no evidence that it had, so they left their wheelbarrow full of assorted stuff up there, and took the elevator back down.
With a bit of time left in the session, everyone piled into one of the skiffs. Seépravir cast Levitate and floated just above the skiff rather than actually riding in it, just in case. Garreth actually had Boating skill (!), so he took charge of rowing the boat. The water from the waterfall caused a current at their backs, so the boat moved easily down the underground river. At the first fork, the group had a chance of turning right toward some rocks or left toward no rocks, and chose no rocks. At the second fork, they again had a chance of right for rocks or left for no rocks, and again chose no rocks.
And, then, they were just rowing along, minding their own business, when some Cave Fishers in a cave 40' up decided to go fishing for PCs. The Cave Fishers rolled a 6 on their surprise roll. Luckily for the PCs, Zaber (keeping watch in the front of the boat) rolled a 5 against his crazy-high Perception, so no surprise happened. The Cave Fishers were basically giant lobsters with 20-yard filaments designed to stick to prey and then lift it up in the air to its doom.
But without surprise, the PCs had a decent chance to dodge the filaments. And Polly was faster than the Fishers so she got to go first. She shot one, hitting it hard enough to stun it, so it didn't get to attack that turn. Zaber grabbed a pole so he could steady the boat while Garreth fought. Garreth readied his returning spear.
Seépravir dodged a filament, with her Levitate giving her freedom of movement to retreat beyond the boat without splashing. Then she cast Concussion. Zaber judo-parried a filament, and it didn't stick to him. He then dodged a second one. Polly shot the same Fisher again. Garreth threw his spear at one, but missed. Zaber tried using a judo throw to pull a Fisher out of its cave high above and make it spash into the water, but it was more than twice as strong as him, so this move had no chance. He then used his Escape skill to detach from the filament.
The Fishers tried some more fishing. Seépravir dodged again, but one of them got Polly with a critical hit, causing her to drop her bow. (It had a lanyard, the best $1 item in GURPS, so she could get it back.) Another one tried to grab Seépravir, and rolled a critical hit, but she used Luck to make it reroll, and it didn't succeed again. Seépravir threw her Concussion up to the Fisher cave, stunning one of them.
Garreth decided not to catch his returning spear, and fast-drew his Katana instead, then chopped the filament holding Polly in half. Polly fell into the boat, made her Acrobatics roll, and landed fine. Garreth then chopped another filament for good measure. Polly used the lanyard to recover her dropped bow, and rolled a critical success, so I ruled that she'd flipped it into her hand so deftly that she could take a shot this turn. (She has Extra Attack plus Heroic Archer, so normally she fires two arrows per second.) She put another arrow into the stunned Fisher.
Zaber held the boat steady with his pole. Another Fisher grabbed Polly with a filament, and rolled another critical hit. She was grabbed again, but at least this time didn't drop her bow. Another one tried to grab Garreth, and he parried it with his katana. For once, a monster's weapon didn't count as a striker, so Garreth's parry counted as aggressive and he got a free hit on the filament, which shortened it again.
At this point Seépravir started spamming Death Vision at one of the Fishers, giving it a vision of being boiled in a gigantic fungus pot, and stunning it with no resistance roll. Garreth rapid struck two more filaments, the one holding Polly and one other, making them too short to reach the boat. (The filaments were 20 yards long and the boat was about 13 yards below the cave, so each chop-through took off about 7 yards, so two chops were enough to make the filament too short to be useful until the victims got closer.) Polly put a couple more arrows into a Fisher, hurting it badly. Garreth chopped the last filament in reach in two, and then there was nothing left in range for him to chop. Polly kept shooting, until the last couple of very wounded Fishers retreated away from the cave opening, out of line of sight from the skiff below.
Seépravir cast Levitate on Polly, so she could zoom up and keep shooting Fishers. Then she cast it on Garreth so he could fly up and chop them. Zaber started talking about climbing up the cliff toward the Fishers. But at that point I just called the battle. It was late, and the enemies were all below 0 HP, with no means of healing, so they were all going to pass out sooner or later. And if the PCs were smart enough to have Polly just keep shooting them from mid-air, beyond (shortened) filament range, the fishers had no chance.
With the battle over, Garreth took Zaber's rope and used it to haul the skiff up behind him. Everyone Levitated or climbed up the cliff to the Fishers' cave, which contained 4 dead and/or unconscious giant lobsters, and a pile of debris. Zaber searched the debris, and found some coins and a fire opal. Seépravir cast Seek Magic, and found a wand that Zaber had missed. A few lobster bits were removed for eating on the trip home, and everyone headed back down to the water then rowed back upstream to the beach, then went up the elevator to the top level of the dungeon, then walked back to Cillamar.
GM's Comments:
This session was basically a parley, two fights, some playing with boats and elevators, and some searching for treasure.
The parley went okay. Vulgaris didn't really want to fight the PCs again, since they defeated her last week with her elemental allies, so she was unlikely to win the same fight without them. The PCs didn't really want to fight her again either. At this point they seem to have an uneasy truce.
The derro weren't friendly but weren't really a match for the PCs either. They got a few crossbow shots and spells off, and took a bunch of arrows and katana chops and Concussion spells in return. It would have been more fun to have this fight in mid-air from elevator baskets, with the prospect of lethal falling damage, but the party took the long way down, and earned a lot of character points on the way.
The cave fishers were a neat fight, but really needed surprise to hit 4 PCs at once. Without surprise, Garreth was able to chop whichever filament grabbed someone, while Polly kept a steady stream of arrows flying, and Seépravir kept stunning the fishers. Zaber's role in this fight was pretty simple: hold the boat steady so that Garreth was free to use his katana to chop filaments.
Finding the bottom of the elevator whose top they found long ago was a fun bit of closure. The players had discussed going down the elevator a few times, but hadn't ever gotten around to it. Now it provides a multi-level shortcut, avoiding hiking through three dungeon levels, which probably matters to the PCs more than to the players, since we mostly fast-forward through that stuff unless there's a wandering monster encounter.
Overall it was a profitable trip, with the Folding Boat, the wand, several repeating crossbows and suits of derro-sized mail, and a bunch of coins and gems found.
The other accomplishment this session was figuring out how to share the skiff-full-of-PCs token among all players, so whoever was rowing the boat could just push one token in roll20, without everyone else having to constantly maintain their position in the boat. We may decide to use this technique in the future to keep everyone in formation on dry land. Or maybe not, if everyone needing to drag their token around is more fun.