Date:
Demmasday, 30th of Ligarios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Cool, rainy
Player Characters:
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Based Cosmo)
Significant NPCs:
Fael, Half-Elven druid at the Grain House
Onyx, disturbingly smart cat
3 feral cats
4 Guards from the Cult of Set
1 Invisible Stalker
Skizz and Burzip, lost Lizardmen
3 Shriekers shrieking
3 Mud People
Ioannes and Thronebreaker adopted the four cats found in the Great Cavern the previous week. Ioannes paid Fael the druid to cast Beast Speech and speak to the black cat who appeared to be the leader. He explained that his name was Onyx, that he used to be the familiar of an Elven mage named Lyra, and that Lyra had been killed by a giant lizard while foolishly adventuring without sufficient bodyguards. He had met the other cats while looking for a way out the Great Cavern, and had survived by adopting their primitive lifestyle of eating mice and small lizards and sleeping in a damp cave, but he didn't like it at all. He had been trying to find a way out, so they could find a nice wizard to adopt them and provide a civilized existence, but had not yet succeeded until Ioannes and his bodyguards had found them. He asked Fael if he could be placed with a female elven wizard who was smart enough not to go adventuring, as having his previous wizard killed had been stressful. Fael smiled and relayed Onyx's message and returned him to Ioannes, who then took the cats back to his apartment at the Arcane Practitioners' Club.
After a brief discussion about whether it was time to kill Plumthorn's halflings the Left for Loot club decided to instead continue exploring the Great Cavern. They threw away their two-week-old supply of trade food and bought a wheelbarrow full of new food, then pushed it back to the secret entrance two-thirds of the way up the Long Stair. Leaving the wheelbarrow inside the entrance, they first checked the stone supply chest nearby, but it appeared nobody else had disturbed it in the past week. Vallium then led them through a series of small cave passages until they emerged into the Great Cavern, full of giant mushrooms. They walked north to the shore of the lake and then west to the dock, and discussed whether they should take a boat north or fly. Ioannes mentioned that they hadn't fully explored the southwest corner of the cavern yet, so they followed a path southwest from the dock.
The path eventually revealed a constructed platform about twenty-five feet up the west wall of the cavern, with several humans standing on it, wearing red scale armor and holding crossbows. The guards told them to go away or get shot. The party did not want to go away, so the lead arbalist took a shot at Vael, at the same time Vael started casting Missile Shield on himself. The crossbowman was a bit faster than the caster, and the bolt almost plugged Vael in the chest, but then his Bless spell intervened and made it slightly miss. Vael did not lose his spell, finished making himself immune to missiles, and then did his best impersonation of a wizard about to cast Fireball in an attempt to draw more shots at himself.
Vael actually cast Flight on Vallium, while the other three crossbowmen took aimed shots at his companions. None of them got past a shield and actually hurt anyone. While they reloaded, Vallium flew up and started stabbing one of them, while Michael winged his boomerang at another one. Meanwhile Uvash ran forward under the platform hoping Vallium would kick down a rope ladder to him, and Ioannes cast Shield on Michael.
Around the time the guards loosed their second bolts, Vael had cast Flight on Michael, who started flying up to join the melee. Vallium tried kicking the rope ladder down to Uvash while fighting, but failed to do both at once, so Uvash was still standing below in frustration. The guards dropped their crossbows after their second shots and pulled out maces, but did not have time to ready their nearby shields, so they did not fight very effectively. Vallium and Michael eventually wounded a couple of them. By then Vael had noticed Uvash's frustration and cast an Apportation spell to lower the rope ladder. Uvash climbed up it, with Ioannes behind him. By the time they reached the top, Michael and Vallium had knocked out three of the guards, with the fourth running down a finished stone passage to the west, carved into the side of the Great Cavern. With Flight spells still going, Vallium and Michael were both much faster than the wounded fleeing guard. Vallium cut him badly, and then Michael landed a critical hit and finished him off.
Uvash and Ioannes noticed that, in addition to the red scale armor, one of the guards was wearing a holy symbol of a dog with square ears, a distinct symbol of the proscribed Cult of Set. After a quick discussion of whether they wanted to take prisoners, the party decided they couldn't afford to leave any Set guards alive, and threw all four off the platform back into the Great Cavern to finish them off and to make it easier to collect their armor. Michael flew down to strip off their armor, while Vallium stood guard and Vael and Ioannes rested.
The group continued west until the stone passage opened into a storeroom, with sacks lining two walls and a closed door to the west. They searched all the sacks and mostly found dried mushrooms, though Vael also found a silver plate engraved with a sheep's head. They took the silver and left the mushrooms, then opened the door and continued west. They next found a surprisingly nice room, full of comfortable furniture, and with a fire still burning in the fireplace, but with nobody present. They didn't find any very portable valuables, so they listened to the door to the north. Hearing nothing, Vallium tried to open it, but it was locked. Vael Lockmastered it open, and then they went north, down a finished tunnel that turned into a rougher cave tunnel descending to the north. It ended at a junction, with a door leading north, a caved-in passage to the west, and a very narrow passage northeast. After checking the cave-in and deciding it was impassable, they went northeast.
Vallium, in the lead, decided to follow the right-hand wall. This led them to a passage south, into a room whose walls were covered with some softly growing green stuff. After some discussion, Vael took a sample of the green stuff and put it in a flask for later investigation. They went north, then southeast, then a passage dead-ended into two lobes, each with a pillar. The pillars were identical stone pedestals with onyx columns on top, each of which was divided into five sections with various animal faces carved into them, pierced by vertical metal rods like kebabs. The each section had the same five animals: a snake, a cat, a lizard, a ram, and a winged horse. It was possible to spin each section. Uvash recognized this as some kind of combination puzzle, and Ioannes and Vael confirmed that the columns were magical. Neither of the clerics could think of any theological connection between the five animals, and nobody wanted to start trying random combinations, so they decided to leave the pillars until they found more information.
Continuing to follow the right wall in the twisty maze of cavern tunnels, Vallium led the group into a large cavern with a high ceiling. While walking through the middle of the cavern, Vallium was surprised by something invisible punching him in the head. It didn't hit hard enough to hurt him through his helmet and Ring of Protection, but it didn't appear after attacking either. Vallium tried stabbing the general area where the blow had come from. He occasionally made soft contact, but the attacker didn't feel very solid, so his sword blows didn't seem to cause as much damage as usual. Meanwhile his allies looked around trying to find the invisible creature. At one point Michael though he got a solid fix on its location and chucked his boomerang at it, but to no obvious effect. Vael decided some area effect magic was in order, so cast Create Fire where he thought the thing was, then Shape Fire to try to move the fire wherever Vallium's sword blows led him. Eventually the combination of several sword blows and the fire made the thing stop attacking, but they never found a body.
They left the room to the northeast, into a room where two lizardmen were standing with their hands up in a sign of peace. The lizardmen said something in a hissing language that was presumably Lizardman, and the party responded in various human and elf and dwarf languages, but there was no common language. Fortunately Ioannes knew Gift of Tongues, and he cast it go gain temporary mastery of Lizardman. It turned out the lizardmen were lost; they had come up from two levels below, were lost, and could not find their way back to the way they came up, or to the Great Cavern. Asked why they were here, they first asked if the party were friends with the Settites. When Ioannes said they didn't like the Settites, the lizardmen revealed that they were here to kill some Settites who had killed some lizardmen. Their names were Skizz and Burzip. Ioannes said he could give them directions to the Great Cavern if they didn't mess with their loot and put in a good word with the other lizardmen. Skizz readily agreed, and the two lizardmen departed, trying to follow Ioannes' directions.
Searching the cave, Vael noticed a magical glyph on the wall in the southwest corner. He didn't recognize it, and so asked the others if they would give him enough time to cast Analyze Magic. He did, and found that the glyph protected from wetness and had additional powers. He cast another Analyze magic and found that it also protected from detection, including scrying. At that point he was suspicious that someone was using the glyph to hide, but they didn't find anyone. After some rest, they resumed exploring.
They went northeast, into a cave full of mushrooms. One of the mushrooms started emitting a high-pitched squeal. They quickly decided that the noise would give them away and possibly attract trouble, so they turned around and went west. They entered a cave full of thick white mist. Vallium didn't like the mist and asked Vael to cast Purify Air. He cleared the mist, at which point they saw a few exits. One of them formed a loop back toward the shrieking mushrooms.
Another exit led to a hot room with a bunch of hot mud on the floor. Someone was immediately concerned that there might be mudmen, so everyone was on guard. Nobody had a 6-foot, 10-foot, or 11-foot pole, so Vael used his Wizard's Staff to poke the mud while hiding behind Vallium. That was enough to annoy a mud person, who popped out of the mud and punched Vallium. The attack was ineffective, and Vallium stabbed it for its affront. A brief fight started, where that mud person fought Vallium while two more mud people stayed back in the mud and lobbed hot mud balls. Someone said that mud people were unlikely to have treasure so this fight was stupid and they should all leave. Most of the group started retreating, but Uvash missed the message and attacked the wounded mud person, and it looked like Uvash might get mobbed by all three mud people. Fortunately his friends noticed that he was lagging behind and waited for him, and he eventually. With one of the mud people almost dead, they did not pursue the group out of their muddy cave.
Left for Loot decided that was enough adventuring for the day, and retraced their steps back to the Great Cavern. The corpses of Set guards were still there, along with their armor and weapons. They took all the armor and weapons back to their wheelbarrow inside the secret door, then brought it all back to Gosterwick, where they would attempt to sell it without revealing themselves to the Set cult.
GM's Comments:
Running this part of the adventure is still hard, as it's a bunch of little caves connected by a bunch of little winding tunnels and I'm never sure exactly which way the group is headed or what they're about to meet until I check the room description. They had five different encounters in this session but negotiated with the lizardmen and ran away from the shriekers without a fight, and from the mud people after a brief fight.
This was the first contact with the Cult of Set, which they'd heard a bit about. It was also their first contact with lizardmen, who they hadn't heard anything about yet. So they are continuing to expand their knowledge of the Halls and their map, even in sessions where they don't make much obvious progress.
The combination of altitude and superior ranged weapons is a great advantage, but for the second time in this campaign we've seen that Flight spells are a great counter.
Achievements:
None
XP:
- Exploration: 10 new locations, good for 1 XP
- Loot: Just the Set guards' armor and weapons and that one silver plaque, but good for 1 XP
- Achievements: None
- Total: 2 XP
Next Week:
A couple of players will be unavailable, so the others are unlikely to feel strong enough to take a run at the halflings. I suspect they'll continue exploring the Great Cavern area, or the surface ruins.
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