DFRPG Arden Vul Session 13: Yrtol and the Turtle

Date:

Demmasday, 6th of Jelenius, 2993 AE

Weather:

Cool, overcast

Player Characters:

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)

Ashe "Goat" Maykum, Goblin mercenary druid (Sharp Frank)

Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Hama and Company, adventurers

Yrtol, unfriendly ghost

Dire snapping turtle

Dirty starving crazy woman with a giant magic belt

Camilla, summoned goat

Additional summoned goats

Summoned bat swarms

Summoned fish swarm

Summoned poisonous water snake

Most of the Left for Loot (alias Right for Riches) company decided to take a shopping trip to Newmarket, but Ioannes didn't want to spend that long away from his newly acquired cats, so he stayed in Gosterwick.  And then he got bored so he went over to the Grudge Brigade Mercenary HQ and hired both the animal summoning goblin druid "Goat" and the mysterious half-elven staff fighter "Chrysalis".  Crysalis had just bought a Staff of Blue Light that Left for Loot had found in the Great Cavern, and wanted to test it out.  Ioannis told them that with a small group he didn't want to go all the way up the Long Stair into the ruins of Arden Vul, just go to the base of the waterfall and check out the old haunted watchtower and the tunnels that Goat had previously found behind the waterfall's plunge pool using a Water Vision spell.  The mercs were fine with that, as long as they got paid.

Ioannes dropped the Bless spells on his usual companions, figuring they couldn't get in too much trouble shopping, and Blessed both Goat and Chrysalis.  He also made a couple of new Continual Light rocks.  Chrysalis cast Keen Hearing on all three of them, saying she could maintain it all day.  Goat summoned two more goats (in addition to Camilla) and offered to let the goats carry everyone's backpacks.  He also summoned some bat swarms, but those didn't carry anything.

The group headed north on the Imperial Road toward Arden Vul, and ran into a group of 6 adventurers heading the other way.  The leader of the other company, a big Thorcin fighter, introduced himself as Hama and also mentioned the names of his companions.  Ioannes introduced himself as Ioannes, from Right for Riches.  Hama asked if there was news from Gosterwick, and Ioannes didn't have anything major to report.  Ioannes asked Hama for news from Arden Vul and was told the halflings under the pyramid were doing a major construction project, building new doors around the Glory of Thoth.

After bidding Hama and Company farewell, the party and the world's worst traveling petting zoo continued north until they approached the waterfall.  Their plan was to fight the terrifying ghost they had fled from before, but with some new spells to give them a better chance.  Ioannes cast Bravery on everyone to defeat the ghost's fear attack, and planned to later cast Affect Spirits on their weapons (including a goat) so they could actually hurt it.  They crept toward the watchtower, but the ghost didn't show himself.  Goat started casting Mystic Mist to make the battlefield unfair in their favor, and when he was almost done, Ioannes cast Affect Spirits on Chrysalis's blue staff, then Chrysalis ran forward and opened the trap door leading to the basement.

That caused the Yrtol the Unfriendly Ghost to emerge from the basement, just like last time, screeching a fearful threat to kill all Settites.  This time, with the Bravery spell up, none of them were scared.  Yrtol pointed his Finger of Doom at Chrysalis, but she was close enough to parry the attack with her glowing blue staff, and the purple doom-beam missed her harmlessly.  She gave the ghost a good smack.  As Yrtol felt the pain of a weapon that could actually hurt him, wielded by someone who could parry his attacks and seemed immune to his fear, he retreated back into the wall of the tower.  Chrysalis hit him one more time before he fully disappeared into the wall, and they did not see the ghost again.  He yelled some more threats about how he would kill them all since they were Settite murderers, and Ioannes yelled something back about not being Settites and in fact killing Settites, but they did not see him again and so could not be sure if he heard them through the stone wall he was cowering inside of or behind.

With the ghost apparently fled, Goat finished casting Mystic Mist to protect them while they searched, and then Chrysalis went down into the basement.  It was a 20' square room, mostly featureless, but with a skeleton on the floor.  The skeleton was wearing a tarnished silver circlet and a silk purse.  Afraid to touch anything, Ioannes asked Goat to have a goat open the purse.  Inside were a magic potion and a magic pebble.  Ioannes took a close look at the potion and thought it looked like a Flight potion, worth serious money.  They had no idea about the pebble but took it anyway, and they took the purse too.  The circlet did not appear magical, but it was valuable (if silver) or very valuable (if platinum), so of course they took it too.  They searched the basement for secret doors, didn't find any, and left with Yrtol's stuff before the ghost returned.

Next they headed to the waterfall's plunge pool.  Goat cast Water Vision and again noted the location of two tunnels, about 35' and 40' underwater, behind the waterfall.  After some discussion he cast Water Vision, Breathe Water, and Swim on Chrysalis.  Chrysalis swam through the eastern tunnel, with a strong current at her back, and eventually popped up into a large cave, with huge statue of Arden's head on the north wall, and a huge snapping turtle swimming toward her.  She backed into the tunnel that she thought was too narrow for it to follow, then parried its bite and smacked it in the flipper.  She followed up with a hard blow to the head, momentarily stunning the huge turtle.  It regained its wits and came at her again, then reconsidered and swam away.

Meanwhile, Goat got a bit worried and summoned a swarm of fish and a poisonous water snake, sending them down the tunnel after Chyrsalis and ordering them to protect her.  However they arrived right as she drove the turtle away, so merely served as an honor guard.  She swam around the cave a bit, seeing a small dry platform to the south and a larger one to the west, then swam back out to update her friends.

Goat was tired from casting and maintaining so many spells, and Ioannes was casting Lend Energy to help, when Chrysalis popped out of the water.  She let them know about the cave and the turtle, and said she would wait for them inside.  She then swam back into the cave and climbed up onto the southern dry platform, where she could probably be safe from drowning, current, and giant turtles until the others arrived.  There was an old campfire and a skeleton there, but no loot.  She searched the platform while waiting for the others, but didn't find anything.

After some rest, Goat cast Breathe Water on both himself and Ioannes, and Swim and Water Vision on Ioannes, then climbed on the larger Ioannes's back while Ioannes swam quickly down the tunnel, into the cave, past Chrysalis on the south platform, and up a flight of stairs to the west platform.  He dropped Goat off there, then swam back and grabbed Chrysalis and swam her over to the west platform too.  Ioannes was pretty fresh after the short magically-enhanced swim, but Goat was tired from casting all those spells, so took another rest.

Ioannes and Chrysalis searched the west platform.  There was an inscription on the wall in Mithric, which he could read (but not fluently).  It said something like "Let all persons honor the sacrifice of Arden, founder of this site and defender of her people" in huge letters, and "Lucullus Axia made this as thanks to Lady Arden for rescuing him" in merely big letters.  There were also a couple of old clay lamps and a couple of old silver coins.

With Water Vision still running, Chyrsalis scanned the bottom of the pool and spotted what looked like a magic shield on the bottom.  She got Goat to cast another Swim spell on her, but thought she could do the dive without Water Breathing.  She used Breath Control, then dove toward the shield.  On the way, she spotted another glint of magic, so moved that way and grabbed a magical red square of glass.  She then swam over and grabbed the shield, then surfaced.  The turtle had not reappeared.

While the Swim spell was still active, she jumped back in the water and looked around.  She saw two staircases on the north wall, flanking the statue of Arden, starting about 20' underwater.  She surfaced, told the others that she was going to explore the stairs, then took a big breath and dove.  With the Swim spell she quickly emerged from the top of the stairs into a dry passage with breathable air, with passages leading north and west.  She looked around quickly, then swam back south before the Swim spell ran out to tell the others, then swam back north again to wait for them at the top of the stairs.

Eventually Goat had enough energy back to cast Swim on Ioannes and Water Breathing on both of them, and Ioannes carried him up the watery stairs toward Chrysalis.  Once they were all reunited on dry land, Goat dropped all the aquatic spells and summoned some new goats and bat swarms.  Chrysalis heard the sound of bare feet running to the north.  When the animals were all ready, the group headed north, then turned east, then saw an open doorway to the south and smelled a horrible odor coming from that direction.  Looking into the room, they saw skeletons, graffiti on the walls, piles of filth everywhere, and a skinny dirty woman wearing rags and a gigantic magical-looking belt, squatting on a table.  She babbled various unfriendly things.  Ioannes tried talking to the woman, but she accused him of being in league with the demon turtle.  He mentioned food, which seemed to interest her, but they had left most of their gear outside guarded by the goats, so they didn't actually have any.  She hid behind the table.  Eventually they gave up on talking to her and left.

They continued down a passage east, then south, then east into a room containing some stone benches, a shrine to Arden, and a circular pool that appeared magical.  There was a Mithric inscription on the wall saying "Those who would take up the labors of the Great Defender must purify themselves."  Ioannes washed his hands in the pool, and the water felt clean.  Everyone wondered why the woman was so dirty if she had this pool of clean water right here.  There were some offerings to Arden on the shrine, including a couple of small ivory statuettes, but Ioannes thought it would be wrong to take them.

They went north up a staircase and found a makeshift barricade with the corpses of about a dozen ancient legionaires heaped all over it.  The ancient equipment was all in bad shape, but the bodies had a few ancient gold solidi and silver coins, so they took those.  There were doors leading north and east beyond the barricade.  They listened at both, but Ioannes said they should go back west and investigate their route back before opening these doors.

Going back west, they spotted the crazy woman spying on them around a corner, but she fled.  They went west to where they had emerged from the water, then continued farther west, into a room with more ancient corpses.  They had a few usable-looking shortswords and spears.  Ioannes declared that the shortswords were valuable loot and took them, but they left the spears.  There was a closed door south, and a big archway east, with orange light coming through it.

They went through the archway into a huge and splendid room.  It contained frescoes all about the Labors of Arden on the north and south walls, as well as twelve magical pillars with magical Mithric numerals on them, one dedicated to each of the Labors of Arden.  There was a sunken circular area in the center of the long room, containing a relatively recent corpse of a knight in magical scale armor, with a magic greatsword next to him.  Everyone was suspicious of the sunken area, so they all left the room, then sent in a summoned goat to get the loot.  It pushed first the sword, then the knight's corpse, all the way from the sunken area to the stairs on the west side of the room.  While the corpse was being dragged, a purse fell off its belt.  Chrysalis ran over and grabbed it, and it contained a bunch of small pink gems.  Ioannes inspected the corpse.  He appeared to be a Knight of the Azure Shield, probably only weeks or months old, and had fatal puncture wounds all around its neck, like he had been repeatedly stabbed in the neck by spears or daggers.

Ioannes picked up the sword, which briefly felt like it resisted being picked up, then yielded, then sent a vision into Ioannes' head.  The sword was being held by the knight, as it was plunged over and over into a bear-sized creature with feathers like a bird.  It struck the killing blow, and the knight rested -- as another of the creatures snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the neck with its huge horrible claws, and squeezed and stabbed and strangled, while the knight swung the sword blindly back trying to fend off the attack.  The vision ended with the sword falling from the knight's hands and then the knight falling to the ground next to it.

They discussed stripping the armor off the body, then decided to leave it on and just take the whole corpse out.  They checked the door to the south, but it was locked, and they didn't have any lockpicks, and decided not to try to break it down.  They investigated to the east of the big room, and found some stairs leading up to another room with four more ancient bodies.  One body had a magic shortsword, and there was a well-preserved deluxe folio of The Twelve Labors of Arden nearby.  The other weapons and armor were in bad condition.

At that point Ioannes said they had enough treasure and should head back.  They went back to the crazy woman's room and tried to convince her to come with them, but she just laughed at the idea and screamed at them to leave her alone.  Eventually they gave up and went back to the watery stairs.  Goat first cast his aquatic spells on Chrysalis, who scouted ahead, didn't see the turtle in the big watery cave, eventually found that it was resting in a side cavern to the east, decided not to fight it, and went back to report to the others that the western tunnel looked like a safe way out.  She then swam out of the cave before the spells expired to wait for the others, dragging the knight's corpse behind her.  Goat rested a bit, then cast Breathe Water on himself and Ioannes, Swim on Ioannes, and Shape Water to create an air bubble to protect the book.  Ioannes swam both of them out.

When they met Chrysalis at the edge of the plunge pool, they took the magic scale armor off the knight's corpse, then buried the body.  Goat then said to hold on for a moment, grabbed all the food out of his backpack, and summoned a (merely large, not dire) turtle.  Chrysalis tied the food to the turtle's shell and Goat ordered the turtle to carry the food up the tunnel, across the wet cave, up the submerged stairs, and north to the dry area where the woman could find it.

They headed back to Gosterwick with a large amount of treasure to split three ways.  They didn't run into anything significant on the way.

GM's Comments:

Ghosts are a lot less scary (literally) when you have a Bravery spell.  And having an Affect Spirits spell helps too.  Yrtol the Unfriendly Ghost took a couple of hard smacks from Chrysalis's glowing blue staff and noped his way through a wall.

I fully expected the PCs to cast Breathe Water and Swim on a single scout (because Goat didn't have enough FP to cast them on everyone at once) and send them into the cave alone, which they did.  I wasn't sure if that one PC would survive the experience, as the turtle was SM +4 (bigger than an elephant) with the bite damage to match.  One good surprise roll followed by one good bite could be the last thing that scout never saw.  However Chrysalis had Water Vision, which nerfed the turtle's otherwise excellent chance of surprise, and without surprise she was able to parry its bite and then land a nice brain shot (she initially rolled poor damage, but used Luck to reroll) to stun it.  At that point it decided to go hide and wait for easier prey.

These players are definitely motivated by XP.  At some point they decided they had explored enough rooms and found enough treasure to meet their weekly quota of both, and decided it was time to go home.

XP:

• Exploration: 9 new locations, good for 1 XP
• Loot: A very good haul, and only split 3 ways (summoned animals don't get paid), for 2 XP
• Achievements: None
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

Most of Left for Loot should be back from Newmarket and will probably be jealous of all the stuff Ioannes and the mercenaries found.  I suspect that they'll want to revisit the area behind the falls, since they left some unopened doors and a mysterious woman behind.  Of course that will only happen if Goat is available again, as he's currently their only source of Breathe Water and Swim.