DF Whiterock Session 20: The Outer Caverns of Set

Date: 

Basilsday, 26th of Masporios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Hot, dry

Player Characters: 

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Ashe "GOAT" Maykum, Goblin mercenary druid (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Creon, pawnbroker

Egrk, caveman

Many other cave people

6 small chasm cephalopods

8 giant boring beetles

8 huge spiders

1 roper

Several unseen humans, including a female human fighter

Summoned manta rays, bat swarms, goats, boars, and warhorses

Vael suggested pushing the group's weekly delves into Arden Vul back a day, from Demmasday to Basilsday, to give an opportunity to shop at Gosterwick's Demmasday market, the biggest of the week.  Everyone agreed, but none of the peddlers at the market this week had anything very exciting for sale.  Vael did find some Delver's Webbing at Creon's Curios, and paid Creon to be notified of any new interesting items that came in before they went on the shop floor.

Michael was off in the woods somewhere, so the Right for Riches company hired the Grudge Brigade mercenary on call, the goblin druid GOAT.  GOAT brought along his recent invention, the Living Wheelbarrow, a wooden wheelbarrow containing enough living plant material that it could be affected by the Levitation spell.  He showed his creation to Vael, who immediately bought one.

The group set out early on Basilsday morning, confusing the gate guards who were used to seeing them every Demmasday.  They approached the waterfall without seeing anything of note, and took the small bridge over the Swift River about a mile south of the falls, to check out the west side of the cliffs and see if they could find Egrk's people.  After a bit of hiking they found a large cave at the base of a cliff, with a couple of primitively dressed warriors with spears standing guard outside.  After some rather unfriendly grunts, some more warriors came out of the cave, one of whom spoke a bit of Thorcin.  After a mention of Egrk's name, someone went to get Egrk.  Ioannes cast Gift of Tongues to enable fluent communication, and explained to Egrk that they were interested in trading for information.  Egrk talked to an older cave person and then said they needed metal weapons, metal tools and (after a female yell from inside the cave) some metal cooking pots.  The party said they'd bring metal stuff to trade next time, and asked if they could have any information now.  Since they had previously rescued him from being baboon chow, Egrk relented and pointed out a few spots on the cliff face.  He pointed at one spot halfway up the cliff and said that both the snake men and the lizard people came out of that one.  He pointed far across the waterfall and said the barking dogs came out of the entrance over there.  He then pointed back to the south and said the blue knights on big horses came from that way, and were jerks.

After the spell expired and communication became difficult again, the party waved goodbye and headed back east toward the waterfall.  Since they had GOAT along, they decided to go behind the waterfall again.  Vael first used Shape Earth to make a hole in the side of the cliff for the wheelbarrow and closed it up again.  GOAT summoned two large manta rays to tow people, and cast Swim and Breathe Water on someone, while Vael had a Ring of Free Action that let him move through water rapidly.  Using the combination of manta rays and magic, the group ran or swam or were towed through the tunnels behind the waterfall, emerging in the grotto.  After a pause for breath, they submerged again and went up some stairs to the north into the dry halls.

Vallium wanted to check out some stairs to the west.  GOAT dismissed the manta rays and summoned some goats and boars and bats, and then the whole group went west to a broken door.  Vallium pulled out his platinum token of Arden and inserted it into a slot next to the broken door, which didn't have any visible effect because the door was already smashed.  They proceeded past a statue of Arden with huge hammers in both hands, surrounded by smashed (and previously looted) corpses.  The statue did not animate.  They went out a door to the north, then started up the stairway up that they had previously found but not explored.

Vael cast Levitation on himself, and everyone else started trudging up the stairs.  When the stairs finally ended after about 700 feet, they emerged into a large circular room that was once tiled in blue and was currently partially tiled in blue and full of fallen blue tiles on the floor.  There was a large magical octagonal pillar in the center of the room, with bas reliefs carved on most of the sides:

• A handsome man with a neat beard, with empty spherical eye sockets
• A stereotypically Archontean looking middle aged woman, with large empty disc-shaped eye sockets
• A monstrous-looking creature that resembled Gog, with an open oval-shaped mouth
• A caricature of a priest of Thoth, with small empty disc-shaped eye sockets
• A goblin with a large hole where its missing nose should be

Vallium had some small gold grooved discs that he hoped might match one of the holes, but they did not.  Everyone went through their small items looking for anything that was an obvious match, but nobody had anything that looked like an obviously good fit.  Someone suggested bringing different kinds of coins and gems next time.

After abandoning the pillar, they explored west but hit a dead-end caved in passage.  They then went south and heard some giant rats scampering ahead.  The cave to the south had a couple of smaller natural pillars, one with some stuff on top.  Vael levitated up and looked at some spikes and ropes and poles without taking them, then noticed and took a healing scroll.  They headed northwest through more rough passages and saw a worked floor to the north.  There was some kind of magical force field blocking entrance to a room to the west, so Vael used Shape Earth to dig a small hole around it, and GOAT went in.  He saw a large basket, a bunch of rope, and a few crates of weapons with Imperial seals.  He opened the crates and found some shortswords, spears, and knives, all of which the group took.  Vael decided to sabotage the ropes, attempting to disguise the damage so that some Set cultist might find out about it by the rope snapping at an inconvenient moment.

Vael sealed up the ends of the tunnel into the storage room, and then the group continued north and saw two statues flanking some stairs leading up and north.  Ioannes and Uvash agreed the statues were Set.  Vallium thought the exit to the cliff might be that way, but Vael (who claimed to have Absolute Direction) said the exit would be to the south.   So rather than going up the stairs, they turned around and went back south, then west.  They found a skeleton with two magic wands, one of them a broken Settite Was stick and the other unknown.  They took both for later investigation and then went south to a chasm, deeper than their Continual Light illiminated.  With Levitation still on, Vael flew out into the chasm to investigate, but saw several small Chasm Cephalopods flying up from below to greet him.  He yelled a warning and flew back north to the others.  A short fight ensued, with the cephaolopods losing, but taking some bat swarms with them.

Deciding that exploring the small chasm solo wasn't the safest idea, they doubled back and returned to the room where they'd found the gear on top of the pillar.  From there they headed south, and saw some bright natural light ahead.  They also spotted a small passage heading east.  They went to the exit and saw a chest containing another large basket along with ropes, pulleys, and red signal lanterns.  They looked out to get an idea of where they were on the cliff face, then Vael decided to sabotage some more ropes.

Heading back into the cave, the group went east down a short passage, filled with slippery purple fungus.  GOAT used his naturalist skills and an Identify Plant spell to ascertain that this was indeed slippery purple fungus, with Mithric name Fungus Slippius Violetus, edible but with no known medicinal uses.  They sat down to rest, but their rest was quickly interrupted by a giant beetle coming to investigate.  It was hungry enough to attack, so a fight broke out.  Seven more beetles joined the fight, but the beetles lost.  There was some discussion of trying to fashion armor out of beetle carapace, so Vallium tried removing some large chunks from one beetle corpse, but didn't do a very neat job of it and ended up with a bunch of small chunks.  GOAT looked closely at the beetles to see if they were natural animals that he might be able to summon in the future, but they were unnatural.

They spotted a hole in the floor, too deep to see the bottom.  Vael dropped a glowing rock into the hole and saw a finished floor about 35' below, covered with more purple fungus.  A minute later, another large beetle appeared to investigate the glowing stone.  They decided not to go down into the hole and face more beetles.  Vael decided they weren't finding treasure fast enough, so he cast Seek Earth looking for platinum, and thought there was some about 15 yards to the northeast.

After some rest, they headed east through some more caves, and GOAT spotted a huge spider staring at him with too many eyes.  As the goblin jumped back, the spider and several of its friends advanced.  Another fight ensued, though the spiders were squisher than the beetles so it didn't last as long.  Uvash got bitten at one point, but fortunately the mandibles did not penetrate his armor, so his poison resistance was not tested.  When all the spiders were dead, GOAT checked to see if the spiders were summonable animals, and was again disappointed to find that they were unnatural.

Vallium, who had borrowed the Ring of Free Action from Vael at some point, waded through the spider webs looking for treasure, and found several corpses (3 human and 3 lizardfolk) wrapped up in webs.  He passed the bodies out to the others for investigation and kept sifting through the webs.  The total take was a few coins, a small soapstone idol, some red Set scale armor, a shortsword, and a letter about someone named Theskelon, with an addendum in different handwriting about his tomb.

After resting, they headed north then west and found a large cavern, with a lot of stalactites and stalagmites, a magical mosaic on one wall depicting a bridge, and a few fresh corpses, one of them half eaten.  While investigating, Vallium felt some sticky ropes hitting him from above, then a large creature dropping and biting him.  The bite was vicious, but Vallium's thick scale armor protected him enough that he was still able to fight back.  The ropes didn't stick because of the Ring of Free Action.  Vallium yelled a warning, and everyone else eventually focused and joined the fight.  The roper attempted to rope Vallum a couple more times before being certain that he was unnaturally slippery and unropeable.  By then Vallium had stabbed it a couple of times, and the roper decided to leave and find an easier lunch.  Vael cast Great Haste on Vallium, enabling him to chase down the roper.  Meanwhile, GOAT summoned a heavy warhorse and sent it stampeding into the monster.  The roper was knocked down and stunned, just in time for Vallium to catch up and stab it several times.  The roper killed the summoned horse, so GOAT summoned another one, but it wasn't needed, as Vallium killed the roper before the cavalry arrived.

Vael thought there were about where the platinum should be, but didn't see any, so he cast Seek Earth again, which said the platinum was inside the roper corpse.  At that point they dissected the beast, and found one huge ancient octagonal platinum coin, along with several gems and a magic ring.  While Vallium and Vael rested, the rest of the group kept chopping up the roper hoping for more treasure, but eventually gave up.

There was a worked passage heading west, blocked by a cave-in.  Vael decided to use Shape Earth to dig a tunnel through the cave-in.  As the tunnel broke through, they heard voices from the other side, yelling for Gordy and Quade to stand guard, and a lot of noise.  Not wanting to get ambushed, Vael made a large Concussion missile and threw it through the hole, and then GOAT sent in a couple of bat swarms to clean up.  A few minutes later, they went through the hole, and found one freshly dead female fighter (with bleeding ears and a fatal number of bat bites) and a lot of dead bats.  There was an interesting (but immovable) frieze of a Settite scene on one wall, and a pile of heavy loot.  The rest of whoever had been there were gone.  They looted the body, and then went through the pile of stuff to find several packs of bulk food, a couple of casks of brandy, a few pelts (one of them surprisingly enchanted!) and a heavy carpet.

They grabbed all the loot and got ready to head back to Gosterwick.  Leaving the room to the west, Vallium spotted a tripwire on the floor, and did not trigger it.  Given a choice between just taking the basket down or climbing down 700' of stairs then going underwater, they decided to take the basket.  However, Vael had sabotaged the ropes, so they first had to repair the ropes.  Once they thought the ropes were sturdy enough, they lowered two people at a time down in the basket, and finally Vael levitated himself down the cliff face.  They dug the wheelbarrow back out of the cliff and used it to bring the pile of loot back home.

GM's Comments:

Vael started the session wearing the Ring of Free Action, but he passed it to Vallium when they reached the slippery purple fungus (because Vael was Levitating so wasn't worried about bad footing).  Vallium was very lucky he was wearing that ring when the roper randomly chose him as the victim, because all the binding rope attacks automatically failed.

Other than the roper, nothing else surprised the party despite their noise and bright lights.  The saw both the beetles and spiders in time to defend themselves, and they were the ones who dug through a caved-in wall, scared whoever was on the other side, and killed their rear guard.

I was amused when they sabotaged both the basket and backup basket, and then decided the basket was the best way home.  Planning!  However, knowing that something is sabotaged and exactly how is a good first step to repairing the damage, so nobody fell.  (They were one critical failure away from the repair failing, but they thought of that possibility and sent the GOAT, who had Levitate, first.)

Achievements:

None

XP:

• Exploration:  20 new locations, good for 2 XP.
• Loot: A decent amount but nothing amazing, awaiting final decisions but probably 1 XP.
• Achievements: 0
• Total: 3 XP

Next week:

I have no idea where they are going, and neither do they.   They discuss it a bit during the week, make no clear plan, and then wing it at the last minute.

At this point they've found the following areas:

• Surface Ruins of Arden Vul
• Basement (they think they have probably fully explored this)
• Well of Light
• Howling Caves
• Halls of Thoth
• Great Cavern
• Caves presumably leading to the Forum of Set
• Gog's Cave
• Bottom of Privy Shaft
• Caves behind the waterfall

They also have the Scorpion Teleporter, which they have used 3 times and ended up in 3 places.