DF Whiterock Session 79: Attacking the Bleak Theater Guard Room, Again

Date:

2019-12-27

Weather:

Unseasonably warm, overcast

Player Characters:

Garreth, Half-Orc Fighter, 456 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 456 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 450 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 461 points

Significant NPCs:

Chauntessa, Innkeeper and Historian

Alrux, Dwarf Armorer

Vulgaris, Minyad Druid and Mushroom Farmer

2 Stone Giant Brewery Helpers

Ettin Zombie

6 Duergar Warriors

Gora-Khan, Hobgoblin Vampire

5 Bat Swarms

After finding a large haul of silver coins from Nimboltin Softstep's tomb, the PCs returned to Cillamar.  There, the family of Toos, a woman they rescued from the duergar, rewarded them with baked goods.  Brandis, the bard they rescued, was hanging out at the Inn of the Slumbering Drake and sometimes busking outside.  All five of them got invitations to Lady Chauntessa's New Year's party.

Seépravir decided to buy Lord Flitwick's vacant town house, which had been seized by the town.  The house's contents were included, so she also became the owner of several of Flitwick's paintings (including the one of the cloud giant tower inside Castle Whiterock that started their feud) and some of his clothing.  She tried making a copy of that one using the Copy spell (which failed because that spell only copies text), then gave the original to Chauntessa.  Now that she owned a house in the Noble Quarter, she researched whether titles of nobility could be purchased.  The Kingdom of Morrain was not quite so corrupt as to allow that, however.

Garreth went to Alrux to see if his sword was done yet (it was not), and to place another order for a face mask.  Since he was flush with cash, he paid off the remainder of the sword without waiting for delivery.  Polly ordered a silver coating for her rapier, but since Alrux was already working on Garreth's sword, it had to wait.  Zaber found a fine rapier for sale at Bao's Blades and purchased it for Vulgaris.  Zaber also bought ten barrels of good beer for the stone giants.

Elias got stuck in church.  The rest of the group flew to Castle Whiterock, then headed to Vulgaris's mushroom farm, where Zaber gave her the rapier and gave the giants the beer.  There was a new giant they hadn't met before working for Vulgaris, named Thkirk.

Thkirk had been working for the duergar until he left, based on their general cruelty and poor working conditions.  Garreth asked him questions about the duergar.  He then asked Vulgaris if she knew of any enchanters who needed work.  She didn't, but Thkirk volunteered that the duergar Thane had an enchanter prisoner.

The group continued to the Immense Cavern.  They flew up to the drow stalactite, which was still unoccupied.  They considered stashing some loot there, as it was a pretty good hiding place, but then decided not to.  They then continued to the southwest corner of the cavern, and Zaber and Polly took the passage toward the Bleak Theater.  Listening to a door, they heard heavy footsteps and conversation from the trapped room.  After some discussion, they kicked the door open, and inside was an ettin zombie, with the trap arcing lightning to the zombie, but the zombie apparently unaffected by it.

The ettin zombie charged, as Polly filled it with arrows.  First she crippled one hand, and it dropped one club.  Then she crippled the other hand, and it dropped its other club.  Then she crippled a foot, and it kept coming, slower, with a limp.  Then it got within range of Garreth's katana, and he chopped a leg off.  As the ettin came out the door, the lightning trap stopped zapping it.  Garreth slashed its neck, and the zombie went down for good.

With no Resist Lightning and the trap too far away to disable, the group decided to tunnel around the trapped room again.  Seépravir needed about 40 Shape Earth spells to dig an east-west passage south of the trapped room to intersect the existing north-south passage from the other side of the trapped room to the duergar guard room.  When they broke through the other side, there were no enemies waiting.  Seépravir cast See Invisible on Zaber to check for invisible duergar, and Polly fired a bunch of arrows down the passage, just in case.

Zaber scouted ahead, and found a tripwire.  He disabled it.  As he approached the stairs, he saw a mirror on the ceiling, and an invisible duergar at the bottom of the stairs watching the hallway using two mirrors as a periscope.  Zaber reported back, and Seépravir cast See Invisible on Polly as well.  Zaber tried taunting the duergar into charging up the stairs to his death, but he resisted.

As the group reached the top of the stairs, they heard conversation below, in Undercommon.  The duergar were talking about Zaber and Polly, and waiting for someone named Gora.  Then Zaber heard a door open and close and lock.  Apparently Gora had arrived.  Seépravir cast Magic Resistance on Polly, just in case the vampire tried any more charms.  Then, swarms of bats started coming up the stairs.

Garreth used Elweiss's spear to Great Haste himself.  Seépravir used Create Fire to make a ring around herself, to try to scare bats away.  Everyone waited for the bats to get in range.  When they did, there was much rapid striking and many bats died.  Polly was too armored for the swarms to hurt her.  Zaber took a tiny bit of damage.  And then invisible, enlarged duergar came around the corner and started charging up the stairs.  Polly tried three rapier strikes at the one in front, but he managed to parry, block, and parry them.  Garreth critically failed his Blind Fighting and was sure an invisible duergar was southwest of him, though there wasn't really.  Garreth tried Rapier Wit on the hex, to no avail.  Garreth then tried targeting another duergar, that was actually there, and chopped his shield arm off.  Zaber kept thinning bat swarms.  

Meanwhile Seépravir remarked on how the mass of duergar was a nice target for Mass Daze.  She stopped maintaining a few non-essential spells, then cast See Invisible, then cast Mass Daze on all the duergar she could see.  She rolled pretty well, and only one of the six duergar resisted.

At that point, the fight became not very interesting.  The one duergar that wasn't dazed got stunned with Rapier Wit, then stabbed a lot and killed.  Then all the bat swarms were finished off.  Then two of the five Dazed duergar were Entombed for whatever nefarious future use Seépravir had, while the other three were executed.  Gora-Khan the vampire was nowhere to be seen; he apparently decided to leave after the duergar failed.  There was some quick searching for him, to no avail.  

We stopped at that point due to time.  The group chose to pause in the guard room rather than returning to town and letting the duergar reinforce the guard room again.

GM's Comments:

We spent more time in town than usual, because it had been so long since the last visit.  The battle against the duergar in the guard room wasn't so interesting this time, because Seépravir rolled well on Mass Daze and the duergar failed to resist.  Gora-Khan lived to fight another day, though.

Next time we'll find out what other preparations the duergar made in the week between assaults on the Bleak Theater.

DF Whiterock Session 78: All the Money

Date:

2019-12-20

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 388 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 454 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 447 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 459 points

Significant NPCs:

Garreth, Half-Orc Fighter

2 Huge Invisible Animated Scales

Phasm

We started in mid-combat, after 2 huge invisible scales, one with fire in one of its pans, charged at Zaber.  (Polly had entered the west door of the scales' room, with the others just behind her, while Zaber had circled around and entered the east door, which apparently the scales didn't like.  The scales were invisible, but both Polly and Zaber had See Invisible.)

Zaber backed away from the approaching scales, not wanting to be weighed.  Polly fired three arrows at one of them.  Two were dodged, but one left a small mark.  Garreth drew his katana and All-Out Defended, guarding Seépravir, while trying to sense the invisible enemies.  Elias charged toward the general direction of the fight.  Both scales continued approaching Zaber.

Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  Zaber flew back out the east door and slammed the door behind himself.  Polly fired three more arrows at the same scale, this time achieving three solid hits, one of them a critical hit right in the chain.  Garreth continued all-out defending, while asking Polly what she was shooting at.  She responded "Dire scales!  South one has flames!"  Elias asked if the plan was just to charge in, because he was all for that.  Polly said that sounded good, so he continued charging toward the pile of arrows.  (The scales were still invisible.)

With Elias out of the room and the door closed, the scales reversed direction and charged back west, toward Polly and the charging Elias.  Seépravir asked who wanted buffs, then gave Polly and Garreth each a Great Haste.  Zaber, hearing the scales moving away loudly, cracked the door back open to peek.

Polly tried to draw the scales to herself, while firing three more arrows at a scale, and hitting three more times.  Garreth continued defending, while trying to use his blind fighting ability to find the scales.  One of the scales charged Polly with the intent of trampling her.  Elias considered blocking for her, but realized the huge scale would probably break his shield.  Polly retreated and dodged, as the scale became visible.  The second scale also approached, but wasn't quite close enough to attack.

Seépravir cast See Invisible on Garreth, just as the still-invisible scale, which had eaten several arrows, fell over.  Zaber came back into the room, now that the scales weren't near his door.  Polly fast-drew her rapier and started chopping at the pan-chains of the scale that was still standing.  Garreth continued all-out defending, to Seépravir's aggrevation since she had used a Great Haste on him.  Elias smashed the visible and still-standing scale twice with his flail, hitting both times, with one of the hits a double-damage critical that knocked it back and appeared to end its animation.

With both scales apparently defeated, Polly started cutting their chains off with her rapier to make sure they were really dead.  A few seconds later, the invisible one appeared, and the fire on the flaming one went out.  Zaber and Polly started asking questions, like why they only cared about the east door, and why there were scales without a puzzle, while Seépravir rested.  Zaber started trying to use the scales to weigh something, in case that was a puzzle.  There was a bunch of rubble in the room to the south, so he dragged some of that in, until he realized he was doing work.  Then he asked Garreth, who was much stronger and less lazy, to carry rubble for him, and also tip one of the knocked-over scales back upright.  (The other, which Elias had critically smashed with his flail, was too broken to stand up, without major repairs.)  Zaber played with the scales for a few more minutes, then searched the alcoves they came out of, then gave up on the room and put his Invisibility ring back on.

Zaber went back out the east door, then touched the door on the other side of the hallway.  No illusions of halflings appeared, so he tried opening it, but it was locked.  He picked the lock, then opened it.  On the other side of the door was a large room that looked like a natural cavern, with stalagmites and pillars, some of which had marks carved on them.  Zaber investigated the marks, and found that they were about 3' off the floor, which he and Polly thought meant they were probably made by a halfling.

Polly looked closely at another stalagmite -- and then it turned into another Polly, and attacked her!  This totally unexpected event surprised both Zaber and Polly.  (Their friends were still outside the room.)  Fake-Polly attacked Polly with her rapier, and Polly couldn't retreat because of stun, but she successfully Acrobatically Dodged anyway.  Fake-Polly attacked again, and Polly failed to dodge this time, and took a serious enough cut that Polly's Bless spell decided to avert it, and went away.  Fake-Polly attacked a third time (just like real Polly), hit again, and put 19 points of cutting damage into Polly, which failed to stun her.

Zaber and Polly both recovered from mental stun, as their friends outside the room heard the sounds of fighting and started approaching to help, but then Fake-Polly got another turn.  She landed three very deceptive rapier strikes on Polly, but Polly fast-drew her own rapier, then retreated and parried all of them.  Zaber all-out defended, as he wasn't sure which Polly was which and didn't want to attack his friend.  Polly had no such confusion, and so attacked her doppleganger three times (with defensive attacks as she was wounded), but all were dodged or parried.  Garreth, outside the room, started flying toward the battle.  Elias waited until after Seépravir cast Great Haste on him before following.

As the real Polly had stepped back away from her, the fake Polly said "Let me try this bow" then quick-readied her bow and fired two arrows at Polly.  One was a critical hit, so Polly used her Luck to force a reroll into a regular hit.  Badly wounded Polly was at half Dodge, so these hit, and inflicted major wounds and a death check, but Polly stayed up.  She then fired a third arrow at Zaber, which he dodged.  Now Zaber knew which Polly was the enemy, so he tried Slamming her, but she dodged.

Garreth finally flew into the room, saw two of Polly, didn't know which was which, and asked Seépravir to tell him.  Seépravir and Elias also flew into the room.  Not-Polly fired some arrows at Elias, which told them all which one was which.  He blocked one and dodged the others.  Zaber tried another slam, but fake-Polly dodged again.  Elias tried to shield rush the one that had fired arrows at him, missed, then tried flailing her, but she used her Luck to reroll her dodge and avoid the hit.

With all of Polly's friends joining the fight, Fake-Polly felt surrounded, and decided to turn into a small (SM-3) black bird and fly away.  Zaber tried slamming it, but the raven dodged, and told Zaber to eat its shorts.  Polly shot three arrows at the raven, and one was a solid hit, but the raven was tough enough to keep flying.  Seépravir tried Rapier Wit on the raven 9-yard range, not expecting much, but rolled a 3 for a maximum critical success.  The raven thought her joke was so funny it forgot how to fly straight and bounced off the ground, stunned.

Elias flew up and did an all-out attack (double) on the stunned raven, achieving a solid hit with knockback, which caused the raven to slam into Zaber (who chose not to dodge) then bounce off Zaber and land at his feet.  The raven recovered from stun, then Zaber tried grabbing it, but it dodged.

Polly loosed an arrow at the bird, which dodged, then had a chance to hit Zaber, who also dodged.  He asked Zaber if he was okay with this, and he was, so she kept trying, but didn't manage to hit anyone.  Garreth ran up and tried rapid striking at the bird, which retreated out of Zaber's hex and dodged, and then he missed his second attack.

Zaber, not fearing the raven, went for another all-out attack (double) and used Luck to avert a critical failure, and got a critical hit instead.  This achieved knockback and bounced the raven off the cavern wall for more damage, then back into his second flail strike, which got knockback again, and also stunned the raven.  The raven changed form again, into a large oozing blob.  The blob failed to unstun on its turn.

Zaber stabbed the blob with his knife, causing mauve liquid to leak out.  Polly stayed conscious, then stabbed it three times, the final one fatally.  As the phasm died, a Polly torso appeared, then a raven head, but finally its corpse stabilized into its natural form, dead blob on a puddle of mauve pus.

After a bit of rest, Seépravir cast See Secrets on Zaber.  Polly, barely holding on to consciousness, asked Elias for another Bless spell before she even asked for healing.  With a full power item, he was able to give her Bless +2, and she then grabbed the wineskin of healing potions and drank four doses.  Elias suggested burning the phasm, so Seépravir cast Create Fire on its corpse.

Polly, suspicious that more rocks might conceal more shapeshifting horrors, got the pickaxe out of the Bag of Holding and smashed various rocks for a while.  She didn't find any more enemies.  There was a locked door on the west wall.  Zaber picked the lock then opened it.  It led to a north-south passage leading nowhere, with another double door on the far wall.  The passage to nowhere was suspicious so Polly attacked the doors, leaving small dents from bodkin arrows.  Zaber opened the doors.

Beyond was a round room, containing a pretty marble slab on the floor with a poem inscribed in it.  On the far side of the room were two tables, one with three iron containers (box, pyramid, globe), the other with several small knickknacks (wood, iron bar, golden disc, shard of glass, purple fabric, rock).  There was also a lever on the wall.  And there was a secret door, which Zaber easily spotted thanks to See Secrets.  There was also a trap on the secret door, which he disabled.

The poem on the floor was:

“Key, Lock, and Chain

Each I Hid in Vain

It Would Be Such Delight

If You Would Make Things Right

Three Containers I Did Devise

To Hold Anew Each Glassy Prize

With Each Should Go A Token Right

That Once Held My Prize So Tight

Return Them To Their Proper Home

Then Pull Yon Lever, ‘Neath The Dome

Do This Thing, Nothing More

To Open Wide My Treasure’s Door”

It appears the PCs had found a really annoying puzzle.  Presumably the right items had to be placed in the right containers, and then the lever pulled.  Polly put the gold disc in the box then pulled the lever, and nothing happened.  (Zaber thought the trap was supposed to go off there, but he had disabled it, so nothing happened.)  Polly then figured it was probably one item per container, so loaded up another try, to no avail.

Seépravir came into the room and said that she was tired and didn't feel like thinking about the puzzle, but with six items and three containers she could write down every single possible combination for them, and then go back in the hall while they tried them.  She suggested that only one person stay in the room, in case there were more traps.  About ten minutes later, she handed over a piece of parchment with lots of combinations of items and containers written on it, then went down to the end of the hallway to rest and wait to see if anyone needed rescuing.

Polly and Zaber and Elias weren't done thinking about the puzzle yet, and tried a few more combinations, to no avail.  Garreth pulled out the pickaxe and suggested just bashing through the secret door.  Polly said to wait a minute, and first smashed the door to the room, so it couldn't lock them in.  Then she tried prying up the marble slab on the floor, but it was too heavy.  Garreth charged up Power Blow then lifted the marble slab.  Underneath was a small coffin.  Inside were some small bones, but no treasure or clues.  Zaber marked the location of the secret door for Garreth, while Polly put the coffin back.

Garreth started smashing down the secret door.  He broke the pickaxe, and brought the pieces down the hall so Seépravir could cast Repair, then resumed smashing.  Eventually he got the door all the way open, and a horrible wail came out of the room behind the secret door.  Everyone except Seépravir (who was smart enough to be out of range) had to roll against HT-3.  Elias failed, and his Bless was blown off, saving his life in the process.  Everyone else made it.

The small secret room was piled high with silver coins.  Thousands of silver coins.  Zaber started scooping them into the Bag of Holding.  Among the coins were some magic boots and a non-magical silver morningstar, which were also thrown into the bag.  Polly got a shovel for more efficient coin-moving.  With all the coins finally gathered up, and Elias's Bless gone and his power item empty, the group decided to finally head back to Cillamar.  They had finished looting Nimboltin's tomb, though maybe not exactly the way he would have wanted them to.

GM's Comments:

Rules question of the day: can you fast-draw (to parry) at the end of a Do Nothing turn forced by mental stun?  I allowed it, but stated that if the fast-draw failed, that was an automatic failed parry on the first defense.  (As well as the next turn's action spent readying.)

When the phasm assumed raven form and dodged his slam, Zaber's player predicted that the raven would tell him to eat its shorts, before I could even finish typing it.  I guess The Simpsons is still big in the Kingdom of Morrain.

The players failed to solve the puzzle at the end (it was a remember-previous-things-from-the-level puzzle, not a logic puzzle, so when they didn't get it immediately I figured they had no chance), but the pickaxe eventually worked, at the cost of triggering the very nasty second trap, which was inside the secret room so not able to be disabled from outside.  At that point everyone had an active Bless though, so it wasn't as dangerous as it could have been.

The scales were not really much of a threat.  They were strong, but not very fast, so Polly could pretty much just pound them with arrows from a distance until they fell over.  Which is mostly what happened, though Elias landed the killing blow on one of them with a great critical hit.

The phasm was an extremely nasty opponent, in Polly form.  However, Polly survived its initial volley of attacks when she was surprised, and then made a death check and all her stun and consciousness checks for the whole battle.  The moral of the story is to have high HT.  Once they surrounded the phasm and it switched to raven form to retreat, it wasn't nearly as much of a threat.  (It could have gone back to Polly form, but by then it was too busy getting stunned.  All the PCs having Flight made the raven's quick escape ability much less effective, as they were almost as fast as it.)

In hindsight, the phasm probably would have been more effective if it stayed in Polly form and only attacked Polly, so the others couldn't be sure which Polly was which.  But it wasn't a super-genius, so I didn't play it with full GM knowledge, only with the programmed tactics from the adventure, which weren't optimal.

Now that they have a huge pile of silver, I suspect the next week will be consumed with PCs dreaming of things to buy, then failing to find those things because Cillamar is a small town and there are no magic item shops.  We'll see what happens when they go back into the dungeon.

DF Whiterock Session 77: Vampire, Ghost, and Halfling

Date:

2019-12-13

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 454 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 452 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 444 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 457 points

Significant NPCs:

Elias, Wood Elf Cleric

Gora-Khun, Hobgoblin Vampire

5 Bat Swarms

Ghost of Elweiss, Human Warrior

Programmed Illusion of Nimboltin Softstep, Halfling Thief

Metal Hands of Frisking

Ethereal Filcher

2 Huge Invisible Animated Scales

We began in mid-battle against a hobgoblin vampire that had just tried, and failed, to surprise Zaber.  The vampire spotted Zaber, despite Invisibility, and commanded him to kill the elf behind him.  Zaber resisted the command, while Polly scoffed at his ability to hurt her.  Zaber tried grappling the vampire's legs, but missed.  Polly loosed an arrow at the vampire -- and he turned into gas, avoiding it.  She followed up with a couple more arrows, just in case the vampire was invisible rather than actually immune to arrow fire, but they both hit the wall.  Polly then yelled to Seépravir that she would like a Resist Magic spell to avoid getting charmed, and Seépravir yelled back that range matters and to move closer if she wanted spells.  Elias charged in the general direction of the battle.  Seépravir dropped some non-essential spells and cast Resist Magic on Garreth, who was next to her.   

A voice from somewhere said "ha ha ha come my pretties" and then a *lot* of bats appeared.  Zaber flew up to ceiling level, which wasn't that high.  Polly started shooting bats.  Garreth stepped up and waited for something to come within katana range.  Elias charged a bat swarm and started smashing bats with his Flaming flail and shield, while yelling for the vampire to show himself.

A bunch of bats swarmed Elias, but failed to get through his heavy armor.  Fewer bats swarmed Zaber, and failed to get through his much lighter armor.  The vampire reappeared, and gazed into Elias's eyes, and Elias resisted and told it to get bent.  Polly shot some arrows at the vampire.  He went gaseous again, but not quite fast enough, and one of her arrows hurt his arm.  Garreth continued waiting and guarding Seépravir, who yelled tactical advice to Polly.

Some of the bats decided Seépravir looked tasty, and flew over to bite her.  Garreth chopped some of them up, but some got close, so Seépravir used Blink to put some distance between herself and them, then failed her Body Sense roll and staggered.  (Swarm attacks normally automatically hit if the swarm is in your hex, but since Blink lets you get multiple hexes away, I allowed using it to escape.)  The vampire got tired of people resisting his charms, and switched to trying to chop Polly with his greatsword.  He missed twice, and she acrobatically dodged the other attack.

Zaber all-out defended.  Polly fast-drew her rapier, and started making extremely deceptive attacks on the vampire.  He dodged one, one missed, and one hit solidly but didn't seem to hurt him much.  Garreth thinned the nearby bat swarms.  Elias charged the vampire and tried flailing it twice with a rapid strike, but he retreated and went gaseous.

Seépravir recovered from stun, just in time for another bat swarm to attack her.  She Blinked away again, and failed her Body Sense roll again, and was stunned again.  (Note: actually a failed Body Sense roll only costs you one turn; it's not a full stun where you have to roll to recover, unless you critically fail.  So she didn't actually need to roll to recover there.)    More bats continued swarming Elias, which continued to be futile since he had too much armor for the bats.  Zaber decided to join in the fun of killing bat swarms, using his knife.

A bat swarm went for Seépravir for the third time, and she Blinked away for a third time, and failed Body Sense for a third time.  The vampire appeared near (but not directly behind) Polly, and tried multiple deceptive attacks.  One was a critical hit, until Polly used Luck to make him reroll it.  She managed to dodge everything, which impressed the vampire to the point where he said she could have won second place in the arena.  Polly attacked back three times, but the vampire parried or dodged all of them.  Polly yelled for Elias to shield rush, but he didn't hear her in time, and just went for a move-and-attack with his flail instead, and missed.

The vampire, with three opponents near him and his bat swarms destroyed, said "A bit crowded; I'll kill you guys later" and went gaseous again, and this time he didn't come back.  Seépravir went looking for an arrow with vampire blood on it that she could use to track him with Seeker.  Meanwhile Garreth started singing offensive-to-vampires songs to try to taunt him back, to no avail.  Seépravir needed a short rest after casting all those spells, then put another See Secrets on Zaber, then the group continued moving down the tunnel.  Polly suggested that they clump together in a Tactical Huddle formation to keep the vampire from appearing and backstabbing someone, so they moved as a tight blob with people watching multiple directions, rather than their usual 2-scouts-and-3-followers formation.

There was a lot of graffiti on the walls, mostly in Undercommon and Dwarven, about Koborth and how he sucked.  The passage ended in a metal door, with some writing on it in Celestial.  Seépravir actually knew some Celestial, and it said "Tomb of Koborth, General of the Free Lands, Leader of the Company of the Black Osprey: Swordsman, Husband, Friend."  Polly pointed out another plaque that they hadn't read, so they went back to read that one.  It was in Undercommon, which nobody could read, so Elias tried Gift of Letters, which failed.  Then Seépravir tried Gift of Letters, and succeeded, and it read "The accomplices of the Villain Koborth had Hidden here Devices Most Unworthy to Deter the Strong Spirit of the Duergar. The Traps were Removed at Loss of only Inconsequential Life."

When they were done reading things, Zaber tried the door, and it was locked.  So he picked the lock, then opened the door.  Behind the door was a hexagonal room, with 3 pillars and 1 knocked-over pillar, and a sarcophagus with a glass lid, and 4 doors on the north and south walls, and some steps to the west leading up to a statue and another sarcophagus.  And there was a lot more to read: plaques on the glass-topped coffin and next to all the doors.  Polly thought the statue must be a golem and needed shooting, and put an arrow into it, to no effect.  Meanwhile, Zaber thought he saw motion inside the glass-lidded coffin.

As Zaber approached, he saw that the thing in the coffin looked like a human male, except translucent, and it was mouthing words at him that he couldn't hear.  The plaque, in Dwarf, said "This unholy guardian slave slew several brave duergar as it sought vengeance for the rightful seizure of this tomb. The jutice of the Thane decrees it shall watch as its protectorate is visited with inpunity by Guests of the Duergar."  Zaber used his Lip Reading skill to figure out that the translucent coffin-dweller was mouthing "let me out" and "break the glass."

Polly waved Elias over, to see if he had any clerical insight.  Elias's insight was "whoa, that looks like a ghost."  Garreth asked Elias to cast Affect Spirits on his sword in case it was hostile.  Garreth then smashed the glass lid, and freed the ghost.  The ghost emerged, and thanked him.  Polly asked if he was Koborth, but the ghost explained he was Koborth's friend, and was guarding his tomb, but couldn't remember his name.  Seépravir, who had figured out who the ghost was (Koborth's squire Elweiss), whispered "Hide your spear" to Garreth, but not quietly enough, and the ghost said "Hey you have my spear!"  His memory was a bit hazy, but he knew there were 4 important items in the room, which had been taken by the duergar, and they needed to be returned.  The spear was one, one was a skullcap of an orc leader, one was a cursed blade, and one was a contract signed by the Black Osprey.  He said to look at the statues in the alcoves.

Zaber read all the plaques by the alcoves.  Each said something about one of the four items.  Garreth was pretty sure they had the orcish skullcap, and he knew they had the spear (though he didn't want to return it), which left the blade and the contract.  Polly asked about the hobgoblin vampire.  The ghost remembered that his name was Gora-Khun and that he was a jerk who liked taunting him through the glass.  He also said something about Koborth's greatsword, which got Garreth's attention, but Elweiss didn't remember a lot of details about anything.  He thought maybe recovering the 4 items might help with his memory.

The group walked over to the statue, which both Elweiss and its plaque confirmed was Koborth.  Zaber asked if they should free Koborth, but Elweiss said he thought the duergar already took him somewhere else.  Polly and Zaber opened a couple of coffins.  Elweiss's contained bones.  Koborth's was empty except for a greatsword's scabbard, which apparently used to be jeweled but the gems had been removed.  The scabbard had an inscription, which Seépravir read as "Koborth, remember that only you or I can draw forth Scalemar. Though it should really be you. -- Pelltar."  She also noticed the scabbard was magical.  Polly checked to see if any gems they had fit the scabbard, but didn't find a match.

Zaber, with See Secrets, noticed a secret door behind Koborth's sarcophagus.  He opened it, and found a small room with a checkerboard floor and a ceramic bowl full of coins in the middle of it.  When he stepped in, a halfling appeared and gave a speech.  He said he was Nimboltin Softstep, of the Company of the Black Osprey, and this was his tomb.  And he asked that they take the bowl of coins, and leave the rest of his much greater fortune alone.  After a bit, they realized the halfling was actually a programmed illusion.  Zaber ignored the bowl of coins, and Garreth was about to pick it up, but Zaber asked him not to.  There was another door on the far wall, so Zaber opened it and went through.

The next room had 4 more exits: 3 with gold trim around the door, and 1 plain.  Then another illusion of the same halfling appeared.  He said that if someone was going to steal his wealth, it should be a highly skilled skulker with varied talents and flexible morals.  He then pointed at 3 doors, and said that behind each was a test.  If the test was passed, it would yield a key that would allow walking through walls.  If not, you have to use the other door, and fight.

Zaber touched a door, and the illusion appeared again, and said that behind the room was a mannequin wearing a vest, and that the vest contained a key, and that it was necessary to take the key and sneak it out of the room, past some metal hands that would search.  And that if you used magic, you lost.  There was much discussion about what counted as magic and whether they had to remove all existing spells.  Eventually, they decided not to add or remove any spells.  Zaber snuck in, pickpocketed the dummy, hid the key (which was actually a hollow metal tube), let some metal hands frisk him and fail to find the key, and escaped the room.  (He didn't like his first Holdout roll when the hands frisked him, so he used Luck to get a better one, which turned out to be good enough.)  

Zaber continued to the second door.  This time the halfling illusion said that it was a test of appraising items.  There was a gold idol behind glass, a bucket, a bunch of iron coins, and a lever.  You had to figure out how much the idol was worth, put that many coins in the bucket (as if they were copper not iron), and pull the lever.  Zaber and Seépravir agreed that Seépravir was better at appraising things, so she decided to do this one.  She looked at the idol for a while and decided that it was a fake, worth about $10, and the rubies in its eyes were pretty glass, worth about $25 each.  She dropped 60 iron coins in the bucket and pulled the lever.  The glass plate moved, and a glass chain remained, which she grabbed.

The third door contained a test of forgery.  There was a will, claiming to be the will of Pelltar, giving Nimboltin all of Pelltar's money.  There was a desk with writing implements.  The task was to copy the will, changing the beneficiary, then give the forged will to a three-armed statue for judgement.  Nobody actually had any Forgery skill, so Seépravir, with her high defaults thanks to high IQ, decided to try it.  She gave the fake will to the statue, then tried Fast-Talking the statue, and rolled a critical failure.  The statue put the will in its mouth and started chewing.  So, two quests done, one quest failed.

Polly was happy to go with Plan B, fighting.  Zaber listened to the fourth door, heard nothing, and let Polly open it.  Behind the door was a large room containing a lot of rubble, but no obvious enemies.  Polly fired an arrow at some rubble, and a few more at the walls, but this didn't uncover anything.  While the group advanced suspiciously into the room, Seépravir felt something trying to steal the magic ring off her finger.  She flew up and screamed.  The ring also screamed.  See Invisible didn't spot the thief, and neither did Garreth's blind fighting.

A few seconds later, Garreth felt a bit lighter.  Zaber moved to the far side of the room, where there was a locked door.  As he started picking it, Garreth felt something to his side, and spun to see a large, bizarre-looking creature, trying to bite him.  (Luckily for Garreth, Seépravir was right behind him, so the creature failed to setup a proper backstab from completely out of his line of sight.)  He dodged the bite, and then the creature faded out, undetectable to See Invisible.  Seépravir Great Hasted herself so she could cast other spells faster, while Zaber kept picking the lock, and everyone else waited for the thing to reappear so they could attack it.

While they were waiting, Garreth realized what was missing: his quick-release backpack, containing a Bag of Holding, containing a whole lot of stuff.  This made him angry.  Seépravir cast Ethereal Body on Garreth to let him chase the thing back to the Ethereal plane, though without his equipment.  When he phased out, he saw the creature, which was circling around the party slowly, staring carefully, seeing what to steal next or whom to backstab.

Garreth slammed it, and scored a critical hit, knocking the ethereal filcher prone and causing a major wound and stunning the creature.  The filcher failed to unstun on its turn, so Garreth was free to All-Out Attack (Double), and turned one of the attacks into a rapid strike, for a total of 3 kicks at the prone filcher.  The combined damage knocked the filcher unconscious.  Garreth took his backpack back, then kicked it to death.  Zaber finished picking the lock.  A minute later, the Ethereal Body spell expired, and Garreth reappeared.  He then put his armor, which had fallen off when he turned ethereal, back on.

Zaber opened the door, which led to a passage, with a bucket hanging from a hook, and another door on the other side.  Polly touched the door, but nothing happened.  Zaber carefully checked around the hook, and found a pressure plate on the floor under the bucket.  He tried disabling it, and tripped something, which caused the wall on the east side of the passage to glow purple and translucent.  Zaber stepped into and through the purple wall.  Polly tried following, and hit her face on it, but gracefully enough to suffer no damage.  Garreth tried hitting whatever pressure plate Zaber had found, but failed to find it.

Zaber, separated from the group, put on his Ring of Invisibility.  Meanwhile, Polly opened the door and went into a large room.  It contained a couple of huge scales in alcoves to the north and south sides.  One of the scales had flames coming out of one side.  Zaber went north down a passage, then opened a door to his west, and it led into the same room where Polly was.  The scales weren't happy to see Zaber there, though, and moved to attack him.

We ran out of time there, and stopped until next week.

GM's Comments:

The hobgoblin vampire seemed pretty tough, but failed to charm anybody or scratch Polly with his greatsword.  He did manage to escape using his Gaseous Form ability.  The bat swarms didn't really do any damage, since everyone except Seépravir has pretty good armor, and Seépravir has Blink to escape them.

The PCs spent a lot of time interacting with the ghost of Elweiss.  Lots of backstory, but Elweiss seems to not be remembering very well.  Garreth doesn't want to give the spear back, since it gives him Great Haste.  So, we'll see what happens.

The three tests of a thief were somewhat amusing.  Zaber passed the Pickpocket and Holdout test, Seépravir passed the Merchant test, and then Seépravir failed the Forgery test.  (In fairness, she's not even a thief.)  Two out of three meant fighting, which Polly didn't mind.

The Ethereal Filcher seemed pretty nasty, and chasing it back to its own plane for a solo fight seemed pretty gutsy, but Garreth rolled great and it rolled horribly, and the death spiral began.

We'll find out next time why there are giant animated scales and what they do.

DF Whiterock Session 76: The Grimlocks

Date:

2019-12-06

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 384 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 452 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 450 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 441 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 455 points

Significant NPCs:

6 Grimlock Warriors

Grimlock Adept

Hobgoblin Vampire

We continued in the dungeon, on the duergar level, right after the PCs had figured out how to spin a large wheel to lower an elevator.  Zaber invisibly rode the lift down a few feet until he saw it opened into a large room, about 80' square and 35' tall.  At floor level, there were several double portcullises, leading to large alcoves.  At higher levels, there were viewing stands around three sides of the room, with some kind of hard-to-see barrier separating the stands from the arena floor.  And there were some large crystals in the ceiling.

Zaber looked around and saw some sawdust on the floor and some blood on one of the walls, flew up to check out the crystals, but some kind of barrier prevented him from reaching them.  He then flew back up to the level above to tell the others what he'd seen.  Garreth was worried that if they all went down there, they might be trapped.  While they were discussing what to do next, Zaber heard some yelling down below, probably a duergar.  Seépravir cast Soul Rider on Zaber so she could watch through his eyes as he explored.

Zaber stuck his head back down, and saw one of the portcullises crashes down, then go back up, as some yelling continued.  Seépravir, with Gift of Tongues active, was able to decipher that the yelling was in Giant, and was about which lever controlled which gate.  She was also able to see that the crystals on the ceiling were magic, as were the invisible barriers surrounding the arena.  He flew around a bit, but didn't find anything else interesting, then came back up and suggested they try another lift.

The group ran around upstairs for a while, until Polly found another room with a lift and a pair of wheels to lower it.  Garreth used Power Blow to turn the wheel, and accidentally ripped it off its axle.  He then walked over to the other wheel and slightly more gently spun it, lowering the lift enough for Zaber to fly through.  He found it was another entrance to the same large arena.  That didn't find anything interesting, so he went back upstairs and the group ran around some more until they found the third lift.  The third lift also led to the same arena, so they appeared out of good ideas, until Polly reminded everyone that there were also stairs, near the guardroom at the entrance to the level.

After finding the guard room, Polly tried opening the door, but it was locked.  Zaber picked the lock, and then everyone went down the long stairway.  It was quite dark, so Seépravir cast Dark Vision on those that didn't have it.  At the bottom of the stairs was a long hallway, with a double doors at the end, a couple of sets of stairs up to the east, and two signs.  The closer sign, in Undercommon, talked about the things going on in the Bleak Theater: Auction of Chattel (Human and Hill Dwarf), Razor Boar Exhibition (with unsold chattel), Penal Court of Thane Vejik (executions to follow), and Open Tryouts for Tower Tournament.

Before they made it to the far end of the hallway, Zaber heard the sound of conversation to the south, in a language he didn't speak.  He snuck a peek at the second sign: it read "Forbidden" in several languages.  Garreth tried opening the door, but it was locked.  Zaber picked the lock, then opened the door.  As he did so, he heard the south of someone bashing down another door, a bit to the southwest.  He flew forward to see what was happening, and spotted several humanoids with axes, shields, and no eyes.

His invisibility didn't seem to help much against creatures with no eyes.  One sensed him and asked, in Common, if he could kill the surfacer weakling.  The probable leader gave some kind of answer in another language, and then the whole group of grimlocks charged.  Zaber flew back, not wanting to get swarmed, and drew his knife.  Polly shot a group of arrows, and managed to hit one of the grimlocks in the skull for a knockout.  Garreth flew forward and drew his katana.

One of the grimlocks got within axe range of Polly, but she rolled a critical success on her acrobatic dodge, forcing the axe to turn in his hand.  Elias closed.  Seépravir flew into range and then tried Rapier Wit in undercommon.  Apparently the grimlock she picked spoke it well enough, as he was stunned.  Zaber flew around some more, and Polly launched some more arrows into a dense crowd, but somehow none of the grimlocks got hurt this time.

Garreth used Rapid Strike to double attack the lead grimlock, badly wounding him but not managing a stun.  The injured grimlock tried cutting Polly's head off twice, but Garreth parried both blows for her.  Another grimlock swung his axe up at Zaber overhead, but Zaber barrel rolled away.  The final grimlock cast Dispel Magic on Zaber, trying to take out Flight and cause a crash.  Seépravir tried a Ward to protect against this, but it failed.  The dispel took away Zaber's Dark Vision, though fortunately he could still see using the light from Elias's flaming flail (and his Night Vision meant that a little bit of light was enough).  All the rest of the spells on Zaber (Flight, Bless, See Secrets, See Invisible, Keen Vision) resisted dispelling.

Elias stepped up and tried a rapid strike against the grimlock that Garreth had already injured, landing one solid hit but not knocking him out.  Seépravir dropped a Smoke spell over the grimlocks in the back, then used Rapier Wit to stun another one.  Zaber tried stabbing a grimlock in the hand, but was parried.  Polly decided to switch from bow to rapier for deceptive attacks, and knocked two grimlocks out with skull hits.

Garreth tried rapid striking another grimlock, but his first blow was parried and his second missed.  One of them tried to chop Polly's head off, but missed.  The one under Zaber went for two heavily deceptive attacks at his torso, and missed both.  The spellcaster started casting some spell.  Elias went for two flail hits on a grimlock again, and rolled a critical hit, but failed to knock him out.

Seépravir used Rapier Wit again, in Common this time, and it worked again, stunning another grimlock.  She then used Death Vision on another grimlock, stunning him as well.  Zaber dove down and grabbed the spellcaster by the foot.  He chose not to defend, not wanting to lose his spell in progress, but had to make a Will-3 check for being grappled, and failed it, losing his spell anyway.

Polly smashed two more grimlocks in the skull, both fatally.  The remaining grimlocks near Zaber tried chopping him, but he dodged.  Seépravir dismissed her Smoke to make it easier to find the survivors.  Zaber tackled the grimlock caster, then Polly smashed him in the skull while he was down, but failed to knock him out.  Garreth followed up with a couple of katana slashes and killed him.

The last surviving grimlock was brave enough to All-Out Attack Zaber, rather than running away.  Zaber managed to dodge both attacks, and then Elias stepped up and killed the grimlock with his flail.  Garreth started looting bodies, and found the spellcaster had a holy symbol featuring a skull with a dagger through its eye, very metal.  Also some gems.  And his axe head was bone, not standard duergar-issue metal like the others.

Zaber noticed a door to the west had been bashed.  Behind it was a hallway, which bend then led to a very strong, locked metal door with a plaque next to it.  The plaque read "Tomb of human warrior Koborth, discovered and annexed by Thane Feigr Venik, 2887" in two languages.  Zaber picked the lock (which was difficult) but didn't open the door.  Instead, he doubled back and started opening other doors in the hallway.  There were three duergar bunkrooms, full of beds and unlocked footlockers containing nothing of value.

The next door was locked, and Zaber couldn't pick it.  Garreth used Power Blow and Forced Entry and one of the grimlocks' axes, and managed to remove a hinge from the door, before the axe broke.  He got another axe and removed another hinge, breaking a second axe in the process.  Seépravir cast Repair to fix both axes, while Garreth ripped the de-hinged door off.  Inside was a room with a table and a nicer bed.  The table had a book (in Dwarven), a jeweled letter opener, and writing implements.  Under the bed was a large box full of dwarf clothing, and a small locked chest.  Zaber picked the lock, and found the chest contained a bunch of coins, a paper labeled "Razor Boar pool" with two columns "tastes great" and "tastes bad" and a bunch of names under them, and ten crossbow bolts, which were greenish and very heavy.  Seépravir guessed they might be meteoric iron, and tried Apportation on them, which failed.

Zaber went back to the door to Koborth's tomb, and managed to open it.  It led to a 5' wide, 6' tall cramped passage.  There was much graffiti on the walls, mostly in Dwarvish, most of it insulting to Koborth.  As Zaber came around a corner into a large passage, his Danger Sense went off, and he noticed an undead hobgoblin with a greatsword, up near the ceiling, preparing to ambush him.

We didn't have enough time left in the session for another fight, so we stopped there.

GM's Comments:

Lots of cautious exploration this session.  The group didn't want to go into the arena, for fear they might be trapped there, so after Zaber scouted it out, they went another way.  The grimlocks were fairly hardy, but failed to dent the PCs.

The hobgoblin vampire failed to surprise Zaber.  We'll find out what else he manages to do, next week.

DF Whiterock Session 75: The Gricks

Date:

2019-11-29

Weather:

Cold (session entirely underground)

Player Characters:

Elias (Wiggles), Wood Elf Cleric, 382 points
Garreth (Zuljita), Half-Orc Fighter, 451 points
Ibizaber (Demented Avenger), Human Thief, 448 points
Polly (Kalzazz), Wood Elf Archer, 439 points
Seépravir (Archon Shiva), High Elf Wizard, 454 points

Significant NPCs:

Minia, Human Monster Hunter

4 Gricks

We resumed with the party still in the duergar prison, not wanting to give the duergar a chance to improve their defenses.  Seépravir realized she had a hard time maintaining so many spells while Possessing Minia's body (and losing the IQ and Magery bonuses from being a High Elf), and decided to go back to her own body and Entomb Minia.  Then she made some marks on the walls to make sure she could find Minia again if she needed her.

Zaber and Polly went back to exploring the prison.  Polly asked Zaber to unlock a door to the north, so he did, but then realized they'd already been that way, and unlocked the door to the south.  After heading south, they found another large room with two statues of duergar with beards made of tentacles, and two horizontal ship's wheels mounted to turn winches.  Elias recognized the statue as Sodoutym, the Dark Foe, a god of evil dwarves.  Zaber searched the statues but didn't find anything interesting.  Seépravir cast Seek Magic and found that the nearest magic was a level down.

Polly noticed some large cracks in the floor, separating a rectangular area from the rest of the room.  Zaber looked around the cracks for a trap, but didn't find a trigger for one, though it appeared that maybe that section of floor could move.  Polly turned one of the wheels, which took a lot of force to move.  As she did, the rectangular section of floor moved down a little bit.  Zaber suggested checking the other doors before messing with the wheels any more.

Zaber unlocked another door to the south, and he and Polly went through, finding a storeroom, with a crate and a lot of shelves full of mining gear.  The crate had some dwarven runes on the side, which read "This End Up" in upside-down Undercommon.  Zaber asked Polly to help flip the crate over, and then they grabbed a claw hammer off a shelf and un-nailed the lid of the crate to open it.  Inside was a block and tackle, with a sheet of assembly instructions in Dwarvish.

They moved to the next room, which was full of short bunks and small foot lockers.  Zaber started going through the lockers but only found a book he couldn't read, a bit of stale cheese, and a bunch of dwarf-sized clothes.  Seépravir cast Gift of Letters and revealed that the book was A Guide to Monster Handling, a primer on pushing various creatures around while Enlarged.  Zaber moved on to the next room, and found another storeroom full of mining supplies.  This one also had a create, which was full of greasy heavy-duty chain.

There was one more locked room, with a stouter door and tougher lock, but Zaber managed to pick this one too, after a few minutes.  Inside were several racks full of weapons and armor: knives, javelins, crossbows, maces, mail shirts, etc.  All with the crown-of-bones-and-fangs-under-a-mountain logo that they had seen on the duergar equipment.

At that point, all the doors in the immediate area had been explored.  Polly thought a bit, then asked if they had ever explored west from the tiger room.  After some more thinking, she was pretty sure they had not.  So, the group went back to the tiger room, and found there was indeed a portcullis to the west that they had not opened yet.  There were also a couple of doors in that area that Zaber couldn't remember whether he'd explored yet.  So he peeked between the bars, and through the peepholes of doors that had them, to see if there was any immediate danger.  Not seeing any, he picked the lock to a door to the east, behind which was an empty cell.  Then he picked a door to the south, behind which was a room with several levers.  Southeast was a long passage, with several portcullises blocking it.

Zaber remembered that he played with these levers before, possibly opening the prisoners' cell and then dropping the portcullis on one of their heads.  He asked Polly to watch the portcullises while he played with the levers again.  Two of the levers lifted the the first two portcullises up.  But no combination of playing with levers that he could find would lift the third one.  Behind the third portcullis, Polly spotted two monsters with tentacles and beaks.  Zaber said they should get backup before proceeding, and Polly reluctantly agreed.

Zaber was worried the tentacle monsters might be able to manipulate the levers, so he went into the lever room and closed the door, to keep them away from it.  (Unless they could also open doors?)  One of the tentacled monsters saw the intruders, and walked up to the portcullis and stuck a tentacle through, but they were out of grabbing range.  This was enough for Polly to start loosing arrows.  The creatures bled purple when arrows hit them.  Polly put 4 arrows into one, with the final one being a critical hit right down its beak, which caused it to die in a purple geyser of gore.  The other one fled south, away from the portcullis.  Polly tried squeezing through the bars, but they were too close together.  She then tried flattening against the bars to see if she could see the creature, but she could not, even with See Invisible.

Zaber went back to the room with the levers, which also had two large wheels, and tried turning a wheel, but he wasn't quite strong enough to budge it.  Meanwhile Garreth used Power Blow to increase his strength, then ripped the portcullis off its mounts and threw it on the floor.  Polly, not having shot anything in seconds, immediately ran into the room and looked for targets, but couldn't find any.  Zaber got his crossbow out, Garreth drew his katana, and Seépravir Great Hasted herself.  

Polly, not having any visible targets, decided to just shoot an arrow south along the wall, hoping to hit a hidden creature.  This worked, as a creature that had blended into the wall was spooked by the arrow and dodged, revealing itself.  Polly then loosed a couple more arrows at it, and it failed to dodge them, and left another purple puddle as it died.  Polly wandered south to recover any unbroken arrows, but failed to consider that there might have been more than two of them.  The third hidden grick, on the ceiling, smacked her in the back of the head with a tentacle.  Sadly for the monster, its damage roll was not as good as its tactics, and the attack bounced of Polly's head.  (She wasn't even wearing a helmet, but had Bracers of Force and an Amulet of Tough Skin, plus the protection of her skull.)  Zaber, who happened to be facing that way, noticed the hidden grick as it moved to attack Polly, and warned the others.

Polly shot an arrow at the grick, which dropped off the ceiling to dodge it, and smacked into the floor.  She then put two arrows into it on the ground, one critically, doing a lot of damage and stunning it.  Zaber passed on shooting a crossbow bolt at it, leaving it for Garreth and Polly to finish off.  Seépravir cast Slow on the stunned grick, adding insult to injury and costing it a chance to unstun next turn.  That turn would be its last, as Polly filled it with arrows and figured out where a grick's vitals are.

However, there was still one more, right above Seépravir, which smacked her in the head with a tentacle.  It was hard enough to leave a mark, but the wizard made her stun roll.  Polly shot several arrows at it, knocking it out and causing it to fall off the ceiling.  Seépravir sidestepped the falling grick.  Zaber started closely examining the ceiling for Even More Of Them, but didn't spot any more.  At this point nobody trusted their vision, so Seépravir cast Sense Danger and didn't sense any more.  Polly didn't think that was quite certain enough, so started pulling free arrows out of her Cornucopia quiver and methodically shooting the walls.  Eventually the unconscious grick made a noise, and then Polly made it stop.

There was another portcullis on the far side of the room, which Garreth utterly splintered with a Power Blow followed by a critical success on his Forced Entry attempt.   Meanwhile, Zaber went back to trying, and failing, to budge the wheel.  Seépravir cast See Secrets on Zaber, but he didn't see any secrets.  Seépravir examined the dead gricks for any valuable organs, but didn't find anything interesting under all the purple blood.

Polly walked over to the wheel to help Zaber, and together they budged it.  This caused a rectangular section of the floor to move downward a bit, before Polly and Zaber fatigued.  Garreth came over to help, and Zaber decided that with Polly and Garreth on the job, he could stop pushing.  Elias tried using the power of prayer to move the wheel, to no direct obvious effect, but then Garreth used Power Blow and the wheel moved easily, so maybe the prayer indirectly helped.  The platform moved down about 10 feet, to the next level, and we stopped there.

GM's Comments:

Because of some Technical Difficulties, I didn't have the next level's map completely done yet, so when the PCs reached the next level, we had to stop for the evening, after only about half a normal session.  This is the first time that the PCs managed to get ahead of me, and I'll try to avoid letting that happen again.

The gricks' camouflage abilities are not technically Invisibility, so I didn't let See Invisible automatically spot them.  Zaber surprisingly lost of couple of contests of Vision vs. Stealth to see them, before they got their sneak attacks in on Polly and Seépravir.  However, like many smaller monsters, their damage was too weak for one turn of surprise to accomplish much.  Maybe more monsters need backstab damage multipliers?

Next time, we'll see where the lift goes...