Basilsday, 2nd of Gerakios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Cool, 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)
Sister Valya "Basilisk" Hushbreaker, Halfling mercenary monk (ArchonShiva)
Significant NPCs:
Giant lizard
Many large albino baboons
Isocritis Half-Hand, Archontean wizard
6 baboon zombies
8 logovores
Magically animated head of Stamelis, Librarian of Thoth
Umsko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon
Yamki, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon
Thalia, Thorcin ranger
Fetch, elderly Archontean slave prisoner
In Gosterwick, Vael paid Creon the pawnbroker to let him know about any particularly interesting items before putting them up for general sale. Creon let Vael know about a Wand of Air Jet that came in, but Vael declined to buy it. More graffiti appeared on the town walls, in a slightly different style than the previous graffiti, this time depicting some chickens killing a huge red dragon, then running from tiny halflings. Vael and Uvash went to the Demmasday market looking for Elven and Dwarven rations. Neither found what they were looking for, but Octavian's Cucina had some Arden Vul Cakes available, which Vael purchased. Nobody was quite sure of the origin of the cakes, except that they were occasionally found in the ruins of Arden Vul, were highly nutritious if not very tasty, and lasted forever if kept dry.
Vallium, newly nominated as the Right for Riches Company's official destination planner, decided that they would go down the Well of Light and look for the Library of Thoth. With Michael still off in the mountains somewhere, they hired Basilisk, the tiny halfling monk with the piercing high-pitched kiai shout. As usual, Basilisk asked to ride on someone's shoulder rather than walking all the way to Arden Vul on her very short legs. When they reached the Long Stair, however, she somehow walked right up the side of the cliff. Vael Levitated, and everyone else climbed up the steep and treacherous path the regular way, without incident.
As they walked north through the ruins of Arden Vul, a giant lizard attempted to ambush them from behind a tree. Its attempt at surprise failed, and Vallium stabbed it. Noting the lizard's thick hide might be useful, Vallium skinned it, and Vael used his Levitation to carry the hide up and stow it in the top of a tree.
Continuing north into the Forum of Arden Vul, Vael expressed suspicion about the giant oak tree growing out of the center of the ruined pavement. Ioannes took a close look at the tree and said it was really old, but looked like a regular oak to him. Uvash climbed the tree and didn't see anything odd.
As they reached the Well of Light, Vael first dropped several very bright Continual Light stones down the well to try to scare away light-averse baboons. He then cast Flight on Vallium, who could carry Ioannes then Uvash down the Well. Vael Levitated down, while Basilisk walked down the side of the well, but both were much slower than Vallium's Flight. Ioannes, alone at the bottom of the Well, heard the loud hooting of baboons to the east. He raised his shield and waited, until Vallium returned carrying Uvash. The three then saw four baboons charge. Vallium, with Flight still active, counter-charged and shield rushed one, but failed to knock it over. The four baboons tried to swarm him, as Uvash and Ioannes ran up to help, but Vallium's thick scale armor kept him from getting hurt as he crippled one baboon and knocked another unconscious. The survivors broke and ran, and nobody pursued, as they waited for Vael and Basilisk to arrive.
Once the group was together and the baboons were out of earshot, they went due south toward where they thought the Library was. They saw some double doors at the end of the passage. Everyone listened at the doors, but nobody heard anything. Vallium went through his collection of keys, and one of them (which had been taken from Gerrilad) unlocked the door. Opening the door, they saw a Continually Lit library, with 6 hooded figures seated at some nearby tables, a human in robes with one withered hand sitting at a librarian's table in the center of the room, then a row of pillars across the room, and some stacks of shelves filling the southern part.
The robed human gestured for silence and then whispered "Who are you and why are you in my library?" Vael and Ioannes were not very happy that this guy claimed to own the library, and Ioannes failed to whisper his reply, so the man gestured toward the doors and indicated that they should continue their conversation outside. When they got near the door he made it clear that he was an wizard, and that this was his library because Gerrilad, the owner of this level, gave it to him. Vael and Vallium countered that they had killed Gerrilad, so it was their level and their library now. The man said that, despite that, he was an archmage and they were not and if they did not leave he would have to demonstrate his powers. Vael took affront and Blinked behind the man, then tapped him on the shoulder. At that point a potentially fatal electrical shock moved from the wizard's shoulder to Vael's hand, but Vael's Bless spell caused his hand to jerk away supernaturally quickly, as a bolt of lightning arced to the floor instead.
Isocritis the wizard, affronted that he had been flanked and also that Vael had cheated by bringing divine assistance to a wizard fight, waved to his allies sitting around the tables, and the robed forms revealed themselves to be zombified baboons as they scampered to his assistance on all fours. However, Vallium was directly behind Isocritis, and took advantage of the opportunity by shoving the blade of his broadsword into the kidneys of the wizard while he was distracted by Vael. Isocritis's spellcasting ability failed to protect him from the mighty stab, and he collapsed, dead.
One of the baboon zombies tried to punch Vael, who Blinked back to the other side of the doors, out of reach. Vallium, standing in the doorway, started stabbing any zombie within reach. Uvash and Ioannes both stayed behind the doorway. 8 creatures that looked like baby baboons, who had been hiding within the stacks south of the pillars, ran forward, with one of them yelling "Need New!"
When he recovered from the disorientation of Blinking, Vael cast Grease inside the doorway. He followed this up with Create Fire in another area, after making sure there were no books there. The Grease and Fire channeled his allies as much as they did the enemies, though, and Ioannes and Uvash remained stuck behind Vallium. Basilisk, with her wall-walking ability, suffered no such constraints, as she walked along the wall over the fire, throwing flash nageteppos, then a smoke nageteppo, and continually shouting stunning kiais at the nearest targets, to both stop them from attacking and make them more vulnerable.
As the baboons gradually went down, Ioannes went into the east side of the room around the fire, while Uvash crawled over the Grease into the west side. The baby baboons kept yelling "Known!" and "Need New!" as they adorably tried to kill everyone. There was some speculation about what the baboons wanted. Vael tried speaking Elvish, and the baboons liked that a lot, and all grew a bit bigger. Fortunately for the Left for Loot Company, the baby baboons didn't have time to get too big before they were all dead. One of them landed a solid claw hit on Ioannes, but otherwise the party was uninjured.
With the fight over, the group started looting the wizard's body and then searching the room. There were hundreds or even thousands of books in the stacks, so a thorough search would take forever. Vael suggested locking the doors and searching until they were done, but Ioannes wanted to go grab the statue head of Stamelis the Librarian and bring him to the library. The group went east to Gerrilad's quarters were Stamelis was, and while they were there they stuck Isocritis's body in the mulch pit. Vallium dragged the heavy bust back to the library and set it in a place of honor on the librarian's station.
Ioannes then had a conversation with Stamelis, while Vael searched for secret doors, and Uvash started going through the stacks looking for interesting books. In addition to the books, Uvash found a large mirror, which appeared to be related to the Well of Light. Eventually they decided they should go find more treasure, and Vael cast Seek Earth for platinum, which showed there was some platinum a bit northeast. He then tried finding gold, but the nearest gold was down a level. He then cast Seek Magic, which revealed some magic in the stacks. He went and found Isocritis's spellbook. He tried Seek Magic again and found another spellbook, this one belonging to Tresti Iredell, the half-elven mage they had rescued from Gerrilad's prison. Not wanting to keep burning expensive spells, Vael went through the stacks looking for more magic books, but failed to find any. He tried Seek Magic one more time and the nearest magic was a bit to the southeast. That did not jibe with their map, so they thought there was probably a secret door somewhere.
Heading northeast toward the platinum, the group found a room containing a statue of a baboon. There was a passage heading south, and they heard the hooting of baboons that way. They also heard the deeper grunts of giant baboons, giving commands. They spent a few seconds casting spells to prepare for a combat, then they saw two giant baboons charging toward them from the south, followed by a mass of smaller baboons.
Vael cast Create Fire in the middle of the pack of smaller baboons to split the baboons in half and prevent more reinforcements from arriving. That left 2 huge and 3 normal-sized baboons still in the fight. Vallium chopped an arm off Yamki, one of the huge ones, as Basilisk used kiai to stun him. Yamki realized he had been defeated, and surrendered. This enraged the other huge baboon, Umsko, who slammed into Yamki from behind in frustration, then charged. Uvash dodged and parried Umsko's attacks, then Basilisk stunned him. With both nearby opponents stunned, Uvash made a huge all-out attack targeted at Umsko's skull, connected cleanly, and killed the giant baboon. That caused all the baboons north of the wall of fire to stop fighting.
Some negotiation commenced with Yamki. Vael's main argument was that all the baboons could die, or they could peacefully let the party have the run of the level and take whatever treasure they wanted, and the baboons could live and even be provided with food. Yamki was badly wounded, though, and passed out before the negotiation reached a conclusion. Uvash bandaged the giant baboon to keep him from bleeding to death, and then the group searched the room to the east.
In the room was a naked human woman, chained to the wall, trying to free herself from her shackles. Vallium called Vael over asking for a Lockmaster spell, but the woman indicated that Umsko had the key, so they went back to Umsko's body and searched it, then used the key they found. The woman crawled under a bed and pulled out a lot of equipment that she said was hers, and then hurriedly put on some clothes and some scale armor and started picking up weapons. She said her name was Thalia, that she was a ranger, and that this was her gear. She thanked them for freeing her, and said she had a lot of baboons to kill. They informed her that Umsko was already dead, which calmed her down a bit. She thanked Uvash for killing Umsko, and managed to not charge through the fire into the remaining masses of baboons to the south.
Thalia found a few other things under the bed that she said were not hers, and threw a scroll case to Vael, and pointed Vallium at a sack (which contained the platinum coins that Vael had detected, as well as some gold) and some potions. With Umsko's room looted, they crossed the hall to Yamki's room, where they found a heavy ebony chair, which Vael judged as not valuable enough to be worth its weight. They also found a silver goblet and a small wooden box containing silver coins, a potion, and a magic pebble. Remembering a previous magic pebble, Vael said to avoid touching the pebble until it was identified, and Vallium just took the whole box. A pile of rags in the corner surprisingly contained something magical, and Vael pulled out a magic cloak and added it to the loot pile.
There was one more door in the passage, which led to a storeroom. Inside was an old human man, who was chained to the floor, and cowering at their approach. Vallium tried Umsko's key again, and it worked. The man was not thrilled to be freed, and didn't seem to speak Archontean. He hooted a bit and hid in the corner, then tried running for the door at record-slow speed. Vallium grabbed the old man, determined to rescue him rather than letting him run off and get killed. The room was full of various things that the baboons ate, most of which were in no way appetizing to humans, so they didn't take any of them. But when looking behind some crates, Ioannes spotted a magic bullwhip on the floor, and grabbed it.
At that point the party decided to head for home. They went north and west back to the Well of Light, then went into the library to see if the mirror fit into the Well. It did, but they put it back in the Library for now, because they could lock the doors. Vael once again cast Flight on Vallium, and he ferried most of the others up the Well, in addition to Thalia and the old man. When they got back to Gosterwick, Vallium took the old man to the Temple of Mitra, who told him that the man's name was Fetch and he had apparently been a slave to the baboons for most of his life, and didn't know many words in any human language.
GM's Comments:
Neither of the random encounters I rolled, the giant lizard or the troop of 4 baboons, were much of a challenge. I thought the baboons might be a challenge since they attacked when the party was split while moving down the well, but Vallium had too much armor for the baboons to easily hurt him.
Isocritis was a challenge, and he might have killed Vael except for the Bless spell. But he got himself surrounded, and a surrounded wizard is in deep trouble. He probably should have stayed behind his baboon zombies, but he was trying to keep the invaders quiet to keep them from making the logovores grow. With hindsight maybe he should have had a long, loud conversation instead, so that when the logovores appeared they were huge, but he was overconfident.
The logovores were a really neat monster, and the players eventually figured out how they worked (they grow when they hear enough new words) based on the monster name (leaked by Foundry VTT; maybe I need to find a way to avoid showing token names) and the "Known! Need New!" and the way they grew after Vael spoke Elvish. But between Basilisk's stunning and Vallium's stabbing, they didn't last long enough to grow to be a real threat.
The 4-armed giant baboons are tough except most of them are too overconfident to use weapons. Fighting with your bare hands without the Striker advantage is a good way to get your arm cut off by an aggressive parry on your own attack. If Gerrilad had just taught them to use giant clubs they might have killed a couple of PCs by now. This is one of the challenges of converting D&D monsters to GURPS; sometimes the flavor carries over but the power level changes.
With more baboons defeated, we'll see if the PCs have the run of the Well of Light level, or if there are still enough baboons willing to fight for their territory.
The Rescuers: 1 XP for rescuing Thalia from Umsko.
XP:
- Exploration: 5 new locations, good for 1 XP
- Loot: Isocritis's and Yamki's and Umsko's stuff. Not a huge amount, but enough for 1 XP
- Achievements: 1 XP
- Total: 3 XP
Next Week:
I expect they'll come back to the Well of Light and try to finish searching the Library or play with the mirrors or explore more. But every time I expect them to focus on the same job for two weeks in a row they surprise me, so we'll see.
