DF Whiterock Session 65: Dead Unicorns

Date:

2019-09-20

Weather:

Warm, sunny

Player Characters:

Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 421 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 418 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 409 points

Significant NPCs:

Soras, centaur leader

Grisby, faerie dragon

5 huge spiders, one able to assume human form

Undead unicorn spirit

Madhorn

Redcap fae

Jae Porrel, human girl

The PCs started in Dawn-on-Stream, having returned Ninia Porrel to town, and ready to set out to find Jae Porrel.  Unfortunately, two players couldn't make it, so the group was down a wizard and a cleric, both of whom were, um, busy helping Grisby research a better Seeker spell.  Meanwhile, the less magical adventurers set out to find the missing girl the old-fashioned way: using Tracking skill and random guesswork.

They headed east toward an abandoned, ruined tower where the Porrel children might have stayed.  They still had Flight spells active, so were able to fly to the tower rather than walking like peasants.  And Zaber had his Ring of Invisibility on.  The three landed on top of the tower, and failed to land completely silently, so someone inside heard them and came out to investigate.  It was (apparently) a human male with a bow.  Garreth revealed himself and had a conversation, while Zaber and Polly hid.  The archer claimed to be hunting for bounties on evil goblins, and had chosen the abandoned tower as a base for his raids.  He invited Garreth in to share lunch.  Meanwhile, Zaber snooped around outside the tower, but didn't find anything very interesting.  His Danger Sense gave him a bad feeling though.

Eventually, Garreth came in to eat lunch with the archer (though he brought his own food because martial artists are picky eaters), and then several huge invisible spiders ambushed him, as spiders tend to do.  The archer turned out to, shockingly, be allied with the spiders.  The spiders managed to achieve partial surprise, with their Invisibility and Stealth.  Unfortunately for them, Garreth was wearing heavy enough armor that there just wasn't a good place to bite him from behind.  And they foolishly were spread around the room rather than all clumped on Garreth to maximize the number of attacks they could make while he was surprised.  The first spider got a successful bite to Garreth's unarmored face, but the damage wasn't enough to seriously bother him, and he easily resisted the poison.  The archer pulled out a rapier and managed to stab Garreth with it, but did little damage.  Then Garreth got to make a roll to recover from surprise, and made it easily thanks to Combat Reflexes, and that was the end of easily hitting Garreth.

Garreth yelled, which brought Zaber and Polly in through the collapsed north wall of the tower.  Both made their Escape rolls to squeeze through.  Zaber invisibly flew toward backstab position.  Polly loosed 3 arrows at the human.  He dodged the first two, but the third was in his head and hard enough to knock the target out.  As he passed out, the archer turned into an unconscious spider.  Garreth fast-drew his katana (rolling a critical success which resulted in a cool "schwing!" sound) and chopped up the spider, wounding it badly.

At that point two more invisible spiders appeared and tried to bite Polly's unarmored head and leg, but she dodged both.  Zaber kept sneaking up behind a spider.  Polly switched to her edged rapier, and killed one of the spiders with it.  Not to be outdone, Garreth chopped a spider in half with his katana.

A surviving spider tried to bind Polly with a web attack, but she dodged it.  Zaber moved into backstab position, while Polly chopped it up.  The last surviving spider tried to run away, but Zaber stabbed it hard enough to slow its movement, and then Polly killed it.

After some quick first aid on Garreth's minor wounds, and some futile attempts to find good treasure, the PCs started looking around the tower for any sign of the Porrel kids.  Zaber eventually found a trail leading north, of a single light humanoid wearing boots with pointed toes.  Hoping that was Jae, the three headed north after the trail.

Eventually, they found what looked like a dead horse on the trail.  On closer inspection, it had a gaping wound in its forehead.  Polly thought it might have been a unicorn, which someone had removed the horn from.  While investigating the area, a disturbing spectral unicorn appeared.  It seemed evil, undead, and hostile.  It charged Polly.  She stabbed it with her rapier, which passed right through it. All three adventurers took a bit of damage from its negative energy.  Garreth threw his spear at the spectral undead unicorn, which also passed right through it.  At that point the PCs were pretty sure they had no chance without a weapon that could affect insubstantial creatures.  Since they'd returned the bastard sword that could affect spirits to the angel, and Elias wasn't around to cast the spell, they were pretty much doomed.  Fortunately, they had Flight, and the spectral unicorn didn't fly.  So, they all retreated upwards, having sustained only minor damage.  Once out of range, Garreth tried throwing his returning spear at the unicorn several more times, in case he was doing some minor damage, but this had no noticeable effect.  Eventually the undead unicorn got bored of this game and  ran off into the woods.

Garreth used his Esoteric Medicine skill to try to repair the negative energy damage to Polly, and rolled well enough that it actually worked.  His subsequent attempt to heal Zaber failed.  Zaber continued following the possibly-child tracks north.  They led to a hill, with a cave in it.

Zaber scouted forward invisibly, and saw a dirty, black-horned unicorn guarding the cave.  He reported back, and then Polly, always optimistic, borrowed some organic health food from Garreth and carried it over to feed the unicorn.  This did not go well; the beast charged.  While it was outside the cave trying to gore Polly, Zaber snuck inside.  He spotted a girl, bound and gagged, against the far wall.  Also a creepy little fae with a red hat and a mace, trying to hide in the shadows and backstab him.

Garreth threw a spear at the unicorn, but it dodged.  Polly didn't attack the unicorn, thinking it was Nature but possibly cursed.  The unicorn leaped up at Garreth and tried to impale him, but he dodged.  The gross parody of a unicorn drooled all over itself.  Garreth threw his spear at the unicorn again, and wounded it this time, in the side.  He flew upward to get out of melee range, so the unicorn turned its attention and its horn back to Polly, gouging her arm for moderate damage.  (Fortunately it hit the half where she had a heavy Bracer of Force.)

Meanwhile, inside the cave, the red-capped fae somehow detected Zaber despite his invisibility, and tried crushing him with the mace, but Zaber easily dodged.  Zaber responded with a knife stab to the face, but the fae dodged too.  Polly decided to shoot the redcap, but he dodged, while yelling insults in Elvish, accusing her of being as ugly as his madhorn.  Unfortunately for him, she shot again while he was busy with insults, and made a decent sized hole in the fae.

Garreth used Kiai to stun the madhorn.  The redcap decided Polly was the greatest threat and tried to smash her twice with his mace, but she dodged both.  Garreth came up behind the unicorn and smacked it in the head with his katana multiple times, until it fell to the ground dead and bleeding profusely.

The redcap switched from his mace to a gaze attack, and tried to injure both Zaber and Polly.  Zaber resisted, but Polly took damage, and the redcap appeared to heal.  Zaber swooped in and tried stabbing him, but he dodged.  Polly advanced, rapier singing, but he dodged more.  Then Garreth came into the cave, and used kiai to stun the redcap.

At that point, it was three on one and the redcap was in deep trouble.  Zaber attacked again, but the redcap retreated and dodged.  Polly landed a rapier cut, slowing the evil fae.  Then Garreth followed up with a vicious neck blow, knocking the redcap unconscious.  He didn't stop swinging even then, and finished the fae off.

The girl was still struggling against her bonds, but Zaber came over and cut her loose.  She did turn out to be Jae, the girl they were looking for.  She then wanted to go look for her sister and brother, but Garreth told her they were both safe in town.  She said that the horrible little fae in the red hat was using her to attract unicorns, then killing them, for some reason.  Before heading back to town, Garreth searched a pit in the cave, and found some coins and a potion.

At that point, the three headed back to Dawn-on-Stream, having saved both Porrel girls.

GM's Comments:

The multi-spider ambush was set up pretty well, but Garreth was just too tough for it, and recovered from surprise quickly, and then Polly and Zaber were right there to back him up.  Monsters really need to learn to do more damage.

The undead spectral unicorn was a potential PC killer: it could hurt them, but they could not hurt it back.  And it was faster than them.  If not for the Flight spells that let them get out of reach, at least one PC probably would have died there.  Adventuring without your cleric is not for the cowardly.

Both the madhorn and the redcap were pretty tough, but Garreth and Polly and Zaber were tougher, and each opponent was surrounded and defeated in detail.