Date:
Weather:
Player Characters:
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.
Ooh I bet what they end up doing is dying!
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