DF Whiterock Session 19: The Pool of Donkey Ears

Date: 

Demmasday, 18th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Ethereum "Coinbase" Thuringwador, Elf Illusionist (Mercenary) (Archon Shiva)

Significant NPCs:

Several of Kronos's Thorcin guards

Kronos, innkeeper at the Sign of the Broken Head

Lankios, ancient Archontean hermit

Zombie porter

Many stirges

Gray ooze

4 Baboon skeletons

Human skeleton

Several halfling toll collecting gangsters

Ibis-headed guardian of Thoth

Animated statues of Sekhmet and Osiris

Lion construct

Ioannes was not available, so the group visited the Grudge Brigade to hire a mercenary.  The mercenary on call was the annoying elf Coinbase, who immediately started trying to sell everyone on his new illusion-based tactical assistance system and also on the GOAT's new living (and thus able to be Levitated) wheelbarrow, available for sale soon.  As part of his continuing attempt to make friends and influence people, Vallium bought another (regular) wheelbarrow load of food.

When they reached the Long Stair up to the ruins of Arden Vul, Vael and Coinbase decided to Levitate themselves up, while the others roped themselves together and started hiking.  The ropes were a good idea, as Uvash slipped and went right over the edge, but Vallium and Michael yanked him back up.

They pushed the wheelbarrow all the way to the north end of the ruins, where Kronos's guards occupying the northern gate towers hailed them and engaged them in a brief conversation.  Nobody had any significant news to share, so they headed west to the Broken Head.  Kronos himself was outside supervising his staff, and Vallium sold him half of his wheelbarrow of provisions at cost.  Kronos was happy to make the deal and asked if anyone wanted to come into the inn for a drink, but Vael said that they didn't want to drink and delve but might come back later.

The group doubled back east and south near the Pyramid of Thoth, and Vallium showed them the stairs leading down into a nearby ruin.  They left their wheelbarrow by the stairs, and Vallium took everyone north to the room with the altar that had a secret compartment that he had not figured out how to open.  Vallium showed them where the panel was, and how to trigger a poison needle trap.  He expected Vael to magic it open, but instead Vael just figured out the trick and hit the panel in the right spot.  Inside was a bag containing a bunch of small red gems and a small magical silver feather token.

Vallium then took the group east to Lankios's room, but the hermit was not home.  Vallium left a bunch of food by the old man's pungent stew pot, and Vael wrote Lankios a note.  Next Vallium took them west to the room with the zombie porter, warned everyone that there was a friendly zombie inside and not to kill it, and then opened the door.  The zombie once again slowly walked right up to Vallium, and Vallium demonstrated putting a backpack on the porter and then having the porter slowly follow him around wearing it.  They didn't really need the porter, though, so Vallium took his backpack back and closed the porter in the room again.

Next they decided how to deal with the room full of stirges.  Michael had a serpent amulet to protect him from fire, and Vallium had a fire resistance potion, so the plan was to create a bunch of fire and have them fight the stirges from within it, while Vael strategically moved the flames around to torch stirges.  This plan worked pretty well; Vallium and Michael killed a few stirges, Vael's magical fire burned a couple more, and the rest fled up a chimney.  Vael then used Shape Earth to fuse the chimney shut so the stirges couldn't return to the room.  The group then tore the stirge nest apart, finding some coins, some magic incense, a small magic bronze baton, and some adventurer's diary.  Once all the loot was removed, Vael burned the stirge nest.

There were several stone vats in the room to the south, which had been left intact last time.  Vael was suspicious that something might be hidden in one of them, so he had Michael tip the three full vats over, so they could thoroughly search them.  No treasure was found, but the vat full of something spoiled made the whole room stink, to the point where Vael needed to cast Purify Air.

There were two unexplored doors to the west.  One just led to a hallway, and the group walked around a bit completing their map.  Another led to a privy, with the smelly privy shaft going deeper than the range of their Continual Light, and unexpectedly containing ladder rungs.  Nobody felt like climbing down a ladder, but Vael cast Wizard Eye and put a dim Continual Light on it, then sent the Eye down to scout.  The shaft went down about 500 feet.  At the bottom was a natural cavern, with exits east and west, and a paved area to the south containing a sarcophagus and four burned corpses.  One of the corpses had what appeared to be magical mail armor, along with a longsword and a metal shield.

That was enough treasure that they couldn't just leave it, so they discussed whether it would be better to cast Levitation on both Vael and Coinbase, or Flight on Michael or Vallium.  (Vael could not easily maintain Flight on multiple people at once.)  Michael volunteered, so he dropped his backpack and shield to reduce his load, and Vael cast Flight on him.  Michael zoomed down the shaft, and noticed a ring tied to a ladder rung near the top.  Not wanting to waste spell duration, he yelled to the others about the ring and resumed flying down, while Coinbase Levitated down a few feet to grab the ring.  When Michael got to the bottom he looked around a bit, then headed to the corpses to take their stuff.  He quickly grabbed the sword and shield and was partway through removing the mail armor when he saw a gray ooze creeping along the ceiling to attempt to drop on his head.  Michael was much faster than the ooze, so rather than risking a solo fight, he flew around it to the far end of the cavern, waited for it to come get him, then flew back around it to the corpses and finished taking the mail, then flew back around it again and up the privy shaft.

While Vael rested to recover from maintaining Flight, a couple of the others went to fetch the wheelbarrow, put most of the loot in it, and stash it behind a door where other adventurers were unlikely to find it.  Vael cast Seek Earth for gold, and sensed some gold about 15 yards south.  Everyone searched for secret doors on the southern wall, and eventually found one.  It was locked.  Vael found the keyhole but nobody had a key that fit, so he Lockmastered it open.  Vallium opened the door, into a room with a human skeleton with an axe and 4 baboon skeletons.  The skeletons attacked, a brief fight ensued, and the adventurers won, with a shield rush from Coinbase into the human skeleton's back knocking it down and making it stop dodging so effectively, so Vallium and Michael could chop it up.

The room didn't contain the expected gold, so everyone searched for secret doors again.  This time, the secret door was unlocked, and behind it was a small room with a bunch of golden altarware, a small coffer full of silver coins, and a small ivory and ebony statue of Thoth.  They took all the treasure and added it to the pile in their wheelbarrow.  Vael tried another Seek Earth looking for gold, and another one looking for platinum, and a Seek Magic, but all the nearest treasures appeared to be up on the surface or another level, so they decided this one was done.  Vael was unhappy with his empty map, though, so he had the others guard him while he circled the level mapping.  When they reached the pool of sludge, he filled a vial with a sample to check out in the alchemy lab back at the Arcane Practitioners' Club in Gosterwick.

Finally done mapping the basement, the group went north to the spiral stairs down, then down the stairs to the halfling level, then through the illusory wall.  Vallium led the group south through the remnants of the one-way door that he and Thronebreaker had destroyed, then east through the room where they had killed a dust elemental, to a previously unexplored door.  Everyone listened at it, then they opened it and found a room bisected by the Great Chasm, with a narrow bridge crossing it.  Vael and Coinbase Levitated over, while the others carefully crossed the bridge.  To the south was a halfling guard post overlooking the chasm, and they heard the sounds of halflings yelling about their lights and calling more guards.  In the center of the room was a large statue of Thoth in baboon form, with both arms on pins.  There was a door on the north wall and two doors on the east wall, and listening revealed no sound behind any of them.  Someone tried one of the doors, but it was locked, and Vael thought something on the door looked magic.  At that point Vael started manipulating the statue arms into various combinations of positions.  A couple of positions seemed to cause noises far away, or maybe that was just the halflings.  Another position caused a secret door on the east wall to open, and an angry ibis-headed construct of Thoth came out to attack.  The fight was five on one, though, so the construct didn't last very long.  After it was dispatched the group searched the small secret room it had come out of, but found nothing.

Vael went back to playing with the statue arms, and eventually managed to open one of the eastern doors.  They went east down a hallway, then north into a room with three sarcophagi.  Uvash tried a spell to detect undead, and didn't find any.  Vallium took the lid off a sarcophagus, and a bunch of darts flew out at him.  One was directly on target, but his amulet of missile protection caused the dart to curve around him.  Inside the sarcophagus was a mummy.  They tore the wrappings open to find some jade jewelry and a garnet gem.  Vallium repeated the process with the other two sarcophagi, with similar results.  Vael carefully scooped up all the darts into a pouch, hoping whatever black substance they were covered with was worth something.

They continued down the passage to the east and found a huge room to the north, containing 6 large statues and one huge statue.  Uvash identified all seven statues for the group: Sekhmet, Set, and Anubis down the right side; Osiris, Horus, and Isis on the left, and a much bigger statue of Thoth in the north center.  A few minutes after everyone came in, the statues of Sekhmet and Osiris moved into the center of the room and started smashing each other.  The Thoth statue yelled "Halt" in Mithric (which only Uvash spoke, and not well) and both statues froze, with Osiris dropping his (human-sized, magical-looking) flail.  Thoth then yelled something like "a smart one must choose" in Mithric.  Vael could not resist, and picked up the flail.  At that point the lion on top of Sekhmet's head animated into a separate construct and attacked Vael, while the rest of the group found themselves completely frozen in place and unable to act.  The lion construct tried to bite Vael, and in response he Blinked 3 yards straight up, out of its reach.  After making sure there was no way the statue could reach him, he then calmly started dropping acid, Alchemist's Fire, and small Concussion spells onto the statue until it was destroyed.  As the unfair fight finished, the Thoth statue yelled "Halt" again, and everyone unfroze.  Vael felt some kind of divine blessing make him slightly tougher, and kept the flail.

The group continued east, and saw some orange Continual Light coming from a room to the south, containing a fountain.  Breaking their usual directional rules, they headed for the light.  The fountain appeared magical.  Uvash took a sip, and his ears transformed into donkey ears.  This did not appear to affect his hearing either way; he just looked weird.  (Though he had a chain coif, so he really only looked weird if he took it off.)  The rest of the group decided not to take a drink.

Everyone went west from the fountain, then south into a room with 3 more sarcophagi and a bunch of small holes in the floor.  Everyone except Vallium and Uvash stepped out of the room.  Uvash tried to detect undead, and didn't find any.  Vallium opened a sarcophagus lid.  A bunch of spears came out of the floor, stabbing the armored legs and feet of both of them.  Fortunately, none of the spears managed to penetrate their armor.  Uvash left the room, and Vallium climbed up on top of the sarcophagus, out of spear reach, to continue his looting.  The first sarcophagus contained another mummy, along with some rusty mail and a shield.  Vallium unwrapped the mummy to find more jade jewelry.  He repeated the process with the other two sarcophagi, avoiding the spear holes, and got some more jewelry as well as a couple of maces, a scroll, and a small pouch of silver coins.

Judging that they had enough treasure for the day, the group carefully traced their steps back over the chasm bridge, through the illusory wall, up the spiral stairs, and retrieved their wheelbarrow.  They then headed up to the surface ruins of Arden Vul, south to the Long Stair, down the cliff face, and back to Gosterwick.  Their luck held on the hot summer day, and nothing attacked them on the way home.

GM's Notes:

Arden Vul's got 1100 pages of intricate level design with complicated factions and deep history, but it's also got magic pools that can give you donkey ears, like some TSR adventure from 1978 written under the influence of Thoth-knows-what.  Fantastic.

I thought Vael was the PC least suited to the solo combat scenario against Thoth's pet lion statue, but he demonstrated that if you can fly, your opponent can't reach you or run away, and you have any ranged attacks with lots of ammo, you will eventually win.  No style points, but he won.  Also, "up" is a valid direction for Blink if the ceiling is high enough, and this is particularly useful if you have Levitation on.

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration: 9 new locations,  1 XP
• Loot: Some coins and gems and jewels and gold and silver.  A few minor magic items.  The most valuable thing by far was the fine mail armor that Michael dragged up from beneath the privy.  2 XP
• Achievements: None
• Total: 3 XP each.  Vael also got 1 extra HP for the statue fight.

Next Week:

Maybe they'll keep exploring this level and see if anyone else can get donkey ears.  Maybe they'll go back up to the baboon level and look for the Library of Thoth.  Maybe they'll go back down the privy.  I have no real idea at this point, and I suspect the players don't either.