Date:
2010-01-11
Weather:
Just below freezing, dry
Player Characters:
Elias (Wiggles), Human Cleric, 252 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 304 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 297 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 281 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High-Elf Wizard, 315 points
Significant NPCs:
Vinfol, Duergar Mohrg
Elias visited the Temple of Justicia to tell them about the underground area of high sanctity. They were interested, and gave him a wooden holy symbol of Justicia and a few prayers.
Garreth went back to the dwarf miner who taught him a bit of Undercommon, to see if he also knew any Celestial, but the dwarf laughed. So Garreth also went to the Temple of Justicia, to learn a few words of Celestial to try to figure out the magic spear. One of the priests was willing to read all the words from the spear's inscription. When Garreth tried reading back all of the words, the word "diasta" ("faithful" in Celestial) triggered the spear's Great Haste power.
Zaber went looking for dirt on Lord Granger Flitwick, and found that he fired his maid Skyla before going south for the winter, rather than continuing to pay her to keep up his town house. Zaber went looking for the maid but could not find her.
Having destroyed two skiffs on their last delve, the group decided to try to buy a boat, but failed to find any for sale in mid-winter. So they started hiking for Castle Whiterock. They made it there without incident, electing to walk the long way around the lake, rather than pulling out their Folding Boat and rowing across. (Surprisingly, the lake isn't frozen solid yet, so they can't just walk across.)
Seépravir cast a bunch of spells (Lighten Burden on Elias, Alertness and Keen Vision and See Secrets and See Invisible on Zaber, Invisibility on Zaber and Polly, Dark Vision on Zaber and Polly and herself, and Levitate on herself), and then everyone went downstairs to the first orc level, then over to the secret room with the elevator, then took the elevator down to the underground river level.
Zaber scouted ahead, found nothing waiting in ambush, but remembered there was still some beer left in a cask in the Derro cave, and walked over to get some. It was pretty skunky but didn't do any actual damage. Garreth mentioned that it wouldn't be good much longer so they should finish it on the way home.
Everyone piled into the last undamaged skiff, except Seépravir chose to show faith in Garreth's boat-handling by Levitating slightly above the boat rather than actually riding in it. Garreth turned east at the fork in the river, avoided some rocks, and then they were near the holy place. Garreth lifted Elias up to the trail, then everyone else climbed or flew up.
Elias pulled out his Justicia holy symbol (not his usual Elyr holy symbol, but Elyr and Justicia are friends), and said a prayer to Justicia, and the stone slab ahead turned translucent. Elias then walked right through the stone wall. Polly followed him, and then everyone else followed. On the other side was a small vestibule, with a basin containing some brown residue. There was a wooden door and another translucent stone wall. Elias opened the door, revealing a room containing a weapon rack full of knightly weapons, and a couple of straw dummies. The weapons appeared to be in good shape, but none were magical. Both Zaber and Polly searched inside the dummies, but didn't find anything. Seépravir cast Seek Magic and detected some magic a bit to the southwest, not in this room.
There was another wooden door on the far side of the room with the weapon rack, and it led to another vestibule with stone not-doors on both sides. Elias prayed again and the stone door to the east went translucent, while the one to the west did not. Zaber and Polly went through, and found they could not come back. The doors were one-way. After a lot of fooling around with the doors, everyone went out to the west, and found themselves back in in the passage outside the vestibules. Then Elias prayed with his holy symbol again, and the door to the north went translucent again, and the party finally figured out how to get all the way through multiple one-way doors into a big room.
Zaber invisibly scouted ahead, and saw a huge statue of a women holding a flaming sword and shield (probably Justicia) with an empty basin in front of it. There were also a 6 more wooden doors, all around the room. Nothing jumped Zaber, so after a bit the rest of the party joined him. Elias (who has Theology) was sure the statue was Justicia, and also that her right hand with the sword pointing at a door to the south represented her smiting-evil side, while left open left hand pointing at a door to the north represented her merciful side. There was some Celestial writing next to the basin. Elias's Gift of Letters spell (with a big +3 bonus for Sanctity) revealed that it said "All things
when purified can serve the cause of good." There was some other Celestial writing back by the entrance and exit doors, but nobody bothered to go back and read it.
Zaber had the idea of taking the tabard of Justicia that they had found down in the evil frog god temple, and dunk it in the basin to purify it. The basin was empty, though. Seépravir cast Create Water and put 5 gallons of water in the basin, but somehow half of the water disappeared and only half remained.
Meanwhile Elias decided to open a door to the north (it was locked but the key was hanging on a string on a hook next to it), which led to another door, behind which was a smaller statue of Justicia, and a candlestick, and some white candles, and some Celestial writing that said "Come humbly before the Lady of Mercy." Zaber decided to open a similar door to the south, and found another statue of Justicia.
Elias opened a door to the northwest, and found a barracks, with 3 bunk beds (two full-length and one a bit shorter) and 6 chests. Each of the chests had a different appearance. Zaber got to searching
The chest covered with gems (which turned out on closer inspection to be fake) was full of letters from relatives asking for money. Seépravir went looking for dates on the letters and found that one was dated 32 about years ago.
Zaber opened a chest made of reeds, and found several reed dolls inside, like the one they found with the tabard and bones in the evil frog god's temple.
The chest with a music note contained a flute and some sheet music. Seépravir, a flutist, decided to go play the songs to the big central statue of Justicia and see if anything happened. Nothing did, at least not immediately...
...and then everyone's peaceful exploration was interrupted as a very fast dwarf-sized skeleton with guts and a huge tongue came running up to where Seépravir was playing the flute and tried to slam into Garreth. (Garreth tends to bodyguard Seépravir, and this showed why having someone beefy keep an eye on the wizard is a good idea.) It rolled a 6 on its slam attack for a critical hit. Garreth used his Luck, forcing it to reroll twice and take the worst roll. It rolled another 6 and then another 6. Oops. Garreth was slammed, hard, for a Major Wound. But then his Bless decided that wasn't allowed to happen, and prevented the damage, disappearing in the process. The mohrg hadn't done any damage, but he still had Garreth grappled, and followed up with a paralyzing tongue attack. Garreth made his HT-2 resistance roll, exactly, and wasn't paralyzed.
Garreth fast-drew a knife and tried to stab the Mohrg, but missed. Seépravir started casting Great Haste. Polly came running out of the barracks room and took two shots at the mohrg. The first one missed. The second one was on-target, and the mohrg chose to release its grapple on Garreth to dodge, which succeeded. Elias and Zaber started running toward the fight.
The mohrg tried tonguing Garreth again. He failed to dodge, but again made his resistance roll and was not paralyzed. The mohrg screamed "LEFT ME TO DIE!"
No longer grappled, Garreth dropped his knife and fast drew his katana, then started chopping. The mohrg had really good Dodge though, and managed to avoid all the attacks. Polly first a couple more arrows at close range, and finally hit the mohrg once. Seépravir finished Great Hasting Garreth, while Zaber and Elias kept closing toward the fight.
The mohrg went for Garreth with its tongue yet again, and critically hit again, but once again Garreth resisted. It went for a second tongue attack, but this time Garreth parried. Seépravir dropped a Grease spell on the floor under and behind the mohrg, giving it -1 to dodge and a chance to face plant if it tried to move. Great Hasted Garreth went for a rapid strike (dodged/dodged), followed by a feint to try to lower the mohrg's defenses next turn. Polly fired two more arrows at the mohrg, and once again it failed to dodge one of them, but it still appeared to be moving at full speed.
The Mohrg got tired of having Garreth resist its tongue attacks and decided to step up to Seépravir and attack the squishier target. But it rolled a 17 on its DX check to move across Grease, and face planted. It still got to attack (at a penalty for being prone), but Garreth sacrificially parried both attacks on Seépravir. Seépravir tried Rapier Wit to stun the mohrg, but it was unaffected. So she cast Haste on Garreth.
Garreth rolled his Feint from the previous turn, but tied with the mohrg (they both beat their weapon skill by 7), so no defense penalty. The mohrg was prone, though, which made it a bit easier to hit. He hit it, hard, three times out of four swings. This was enough to slow the mohrg, reducing its amazing dodge to less amazing levels, and also to make it pass a consciousness check, two death checks, and three stun checks. It made all of them. Polly plugged it with another arrow, which gave it a third death check, and this time it rolled a 15. Once again Garreth whined about doing all the damage and having someone else steal his kill, but that wasn't entirely true, as Polly put three arrows into the mohrg.
With combat over, Seépravir needed to recover some mana, so she went into the barracks to lie down on one of the beds. Zaber went back to searching chests in the barracks. The iron chest contained metal polish, steel wool, rags, and a whetstone. The brass chest contained a book about the Theophal family, some of whom were vampires. The chest with a swirl on the lid contained a sketchbook, some parchment, and various colors of charcoals. The sketchbook was partly filled with sketches of six knights (human, halfling, dwarf, elf), sometimes hanging out in this temple, sometimes smiting evil.
Zaber went back to the southeast, and found a small room whose door had been busted open, containing a bed (which had been gnawed on) and a stool (also knawed on) and an Everburning Torch. There was another door to the northeast, which he opened, and behind it was a storeroom full of various equipment. Most of it was mundane stuff like rope and casks of oil and wooden holy symbols, but there were also some pearls, diamond dust, ruby dust, and a miniature sword made of precious metals. Zaber took the valuables and left the mundane equipment.
The last unopened door to the southwest led to a crypt, with 6 niches with names on them. Knight Felgin Forgefire, Knight-Arcanist Argent Theophal, Knight-Chaplain Benden Talbusk, Knight Lorio Ranither and Knight Ancival Dupre. Five of them contained bones, but one (Talbusk) was empty. Garreth immediately said that they should recover the bones from the evil frog god temple and bring them up here for proper burial. With only 25 minutes left in the session, the GM rolled for a couple of random encounters, got none, then declared it was time to use the power of montage to finish the bone-fetching as quickly as possible. The party boated back to the beach then took the stairs back up to the lower Troglodyte level (without actually bothering to move them on the Roll20 map), then Seépravir cast Swim and Warmth on Zaber and made her Will roll to lend him the Ring of Water Breathing, then (still Invisible) Zaber swam through the dark cold water to the wrecked temple with the bones and brought them out, then everyone went back downstairs and got back in the skiff and boated back over to the temple, then Elias prayed them back through the stone door, and finally they interred Talbusk's bones in his designated resting place.
When that was done, the group heard some loud stone-on-stone noise. Everyone went out to see what had happened, and they found the statue of Justicia had bowed her head, and a secret door had opened behind the statue. Zaber went in there and found a large book (in Celestial) on a pedestal. Elias cast Gift of Letters and found that the title of the book was "Testimony of the Order’s
Investigation of Castle Whiterock and Efforts to Slay the Wyrm Benthosruthsa." There wasn't enough time to read the whole book, since Elias doesn't have the ability to maintain that spell indefinitely, but a quick flip through found that it was full of information about Castle Whiterock and definitely warranted further research. At that point the party decided to head back to Cillamar.
GM's Comments:
The PCs spent a whole session exploring a the hidden temple of Justicia. The only fight was the surprise attack from the mohrg who was annoyed enough by Seépravir's flute playing to rip the door off his cell. Otherwise it was just exploring the temple of Justicia and figuring out who these six people were and why they had a temple here. The players figured out the "restore the bones to their proper resting place" puzzle right away, and got the book, so they'll probably find a lot of answers, as soon as Seépravir learns enough written Celestial to be able to read it all. The book will be detailed in a future blog post, to save the players from spending precious game time having a book monologued at them.
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