Date:
Tahsday, 27th of Gerakios, 2993 AE
Weather:
Warm, dry
Player Characters:
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Michael J. Dundee, Thorcin barbarian (Adam)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Significant NPCs:
Wicktrimmer, Imperial Goblin Leader of the Rarities Factor
Barnaby Goodbarrel, Halfling Lawyer
Yrtol the Angry Ghost
3 Fire Mephits
4 Set Guards
12 Zombies
Telepathic Gold Cat Statue
Large Black Pudding
Many Fungal Foresters
6 Beastmen, Servants of Androsia
Several Cave Lizards
4 Varumani
Wicktrimmer, the leader of the Rarities Factor in Gosterwick, sent a message to the Right for Riches Company that he believed they had found some significant magical items and he wanted to trade for them. Vael, Vallium, and Ioannes met with him at the Rarities Factor. Vael was curious how Wicktrimmer knew, and Wicktrimmer said he was a collector of magical items and regularly used magical means to detect any new powerful items in Gosterwick, but did not give details.
After a long negotiation, the Right for Riches Company contacted a local halfling lawyer, Barnaby Goodbarrel, and had him write up papers incorporating them as an officialy chartered company within Gosterwick, then get approval from the Thesmothete of Vetucaster, Eusbia Phokas. With their Company legally able to own property, they returned to Wicktrimmer to conclude the deal.
He gave them 20000 pieces of silver, free lifetime banking at the Rarities Factor, personal shopping services in Narsileon (for up to five designated items per month, if available and found by his agent there, using their own funds deposited at the Rarities Factor), and any information on their enemies (particularly the Cult of Set) that he learned. In exchange they would give him the powerful magic stiletto Larel's Pin and right of first refusal on any magical or historical items the company or its members wanted to sell in the future (except for a few items which Lady Alexia specifically claimed).
Wicktrimmer did not have any new information on the Set cult, beyond the contract on their heads that Coinbase had already told them about. Vallium decided they should revisit the Great Cavern and see if the Settite guard post they had found there connected with the Forum of Set. Vael's Living Wheelbarrow (invented by Ashe the goblin druid) was ready, so cast Levitation on it and used it to carry Larel's Sack.
Ioannes spent some of his wealth on an even more expensive power item, which enabled him to cast Bless +2 on Vael, Vallium, and Michael, as long as they paid for the power item recharges. Uvash declined and kept his Bless +1.
The group left for Arden Vul early Tahsday morning (varying their delve day to throw off their enemies). They first visited Yrtol's ruined watchtower. Everyone gathered closely around Uvash and his Amulet of Bravery to resist Yrtol's fear effect, and Vael wore Larel's Cloak in hopes it would impress the ghost. When they opened the trap door into the basement, Yrtol appeared and started talking about killing them and the rest of the Settites who'd sacrificed his Nyema. Vael said something about killing many Settites themselves, which slowed Yrtol a bit. Yrtol asked about Michael's red scale armor, and Vael said that it had come off a dead Settite. At that point Yrtol decided to spare them, this time, but said not to come back until they'd killed 50 more Settites and recovered Nyema's body. They asked how they would know her, and Yrtol said she'd had a wedding necklace with her name on it, in Mithric, if any of them could read.
Leaving Yrtol, the group headed north to the waterfall, up the Long Stair to the beastman secret door into the Great Cavern. After going in, Vallium led them north to the statue of The Philosopher, where he put two magical silver eyes into its empty eye sockets to see what would happen. The silver eyes disappeared but there was no obvious magical effect. Vael cast Identify Spell and determined that the statue had just cast some kind of Great Healing spell over the area, but since none of them had been injured, it was wasted.
Next, Vallium lead the group east then north through side caverns until they reached the cave with 3 fire mephits and a column of magical fire. He asked Michael, wearing the Salamander Amulet, to check out the fire and see if it led anywhere interesting. It did not. It nicely cleaned his armor, though. The mephits were a bit grumpy, because they were out of Eye Opener mushrooms. They asked the group to bring them some.
Next, the group went west across the Great Cavern toward the Set guard station, 25' up the western wall. Vael cast The Bracteros Effect on Vallium's Continual Light stone so that nobody far away could see it, and the rest put their lights away. As they got closer, Vael cast Walk on Air on Vallium, Michael, and Uvash, then used Larel's Cloak to turn himself invisible, then used the Ring of Friendly Defense to turn himself blind and make Vallium invisible. Invisible Vallium then walked up the air to the Set guard post, where four Set guards were standing. He backstabbed one of them from total surprise, badly wounding and stunning him. The stunned guard fell off the tower and sustained near-fatal falling damage. While the three remaining guards were still a bit surprised, Vallium started stabbing them, while both Michael and Uvash ran up and joined in. The battle was quickly over, with 3 guards killed and the first one lying unconscious below the tower. Vael rested to recover from all that spellcasting, while a couple of the others stood guard in case there were more Settites, and a couple killed the unconscious guard, stripped all the guards' weapons and armor, and threw them all in Larel's Sack. They also found a couple of keys.
They went west into the cliff face, found the Settites' supply room full of sacks of food, and considered burning it but decided not to. They then continued into the Settites guard rest room, which was unoccupied. There was a locked door on the north wall, which one of the keys they just took opened. This led north through a mix of finished passages and rough cave tunnels to another locked door, which led to a finished room with another locked door to the west, which led to stairs down. This was what they'd been looking for, but they decided to explore more of the immediate area before trying the stairs.
They continued north and found a room full of zombies with axes and shields. The zombies immediately attacked, through a narrow connecting tunnel. A slow combat ensued, where the zombies failed to hurt the PCs, but dodged a lot of attacks. Vael cast a Create Fire in the middle of the zombie swarm, and the zombies mostly just ignored it and slowly burned. The combination of fire, two swords, and a mace eventually finished all the zombies. There was a creepy magic black light in the room behind the zombies. After a bit of examination, Vael smashed it.
Continuing north into another cave, the group saw a 3' tall magical statuette of a sitting golden cat with black gem eyes, surrounded by old corpses of 3 people and a lizard. Ioannes looked at the corpses but failed to determine cause of death. Vael started casting Analyze Magic on the statue, but then started hearing meows and hisses in his head. A few minutes later, he started hearing an accented voice in his head, saying "Avenge this wrong! Return me to my sister-people. Touching is forbidden!" over and over. He tried asking questions, but didn't get any answers. Uvash and Ioannes thought the statue might be an icon of the Cat Goddess Bastet, but nobody knew of any nearby temples or worshippers of Bastet, so they decided to leave the statue.
To the southwest there was a passage with some kind of flickery force field at the end of it. Vael tried throwing a rock at it, and it flickered harder. Michael then attacked it with his sword, and the field failed and fizzled out. The party went southwest into the room, then a few seconds later a large black pudding hidden on the ceiling dropped onto Ioannes and achieved surprise. It quickly started smothering him. Ioannes tried cutting his way out with his axe, while Vallium and Uvash tried bashing it from the outside with sword and mace, and Michael tried pulling the pudding off Ioannes. Vael first tried some fire and then a wall of lightning to damage the pudding. Ioannes was badly hurt and knocked unconscious, but the Bracers of Force he was wearing provided some full-body protection, and the combination of stabs and bashes and fire and lightning killed the pudding, as Michael pulled Ioannes out. Uvash healed Ioannes, while Vael used Apportation to get a sample of the pudding into a glass vial.
After a few minutes to recover, the group searched for secret doors, then Vael cast Seek Earth looking for gold, and Seek Magic. The nearest unknown gold and magic were to the east, so they went that way. The magic turned out to be a cave full of some kind of shimmering opalescent fog. Nobody was sure what it was, and nobody wanted to go into it, so they left that cave. The gold seemed to be in the direction of a cave full of mushrooms and fungal foresters that they'd visited before.
As they reached mushroom cave, the fungal foresters started speaking a language that nobody recognized. Ioannes cast Gift of Tongues on Vael to let him speak fungal forester. The lead forester talked about how cool Ptarmis was and how much he liked the living wheelbarrow and asked if they were friends of Ptarmis. Vael indicated that they were also friends of Ptarmis and asked if the foresters had a source of cloud cap mushrooms. The forester indicated that cloud caps were in short supply because the beastmen kept taking them, but might trade some for that wheelbarrow. Vael said not today, but maybe next time. He also cast Seek Earth again and found the gold was a bit northwest. Searching the northwest wall for secret doors, they eventually found one, which the fungal foresters were apparently unaware of, as they were pretty excited when it opened.
The group crowded into a room, containing a big bubbling cauldron and 6 very skinny beastman troopers. Vael again used Larel's Cloak to appear friendly and charismatic. The beastmen asked if they were new recruits to Androsia and if they had any food. Vael lied and said they were, and a couple of them gave their rations to the hungry beastmen. At that point Vallium led the beastmen to the western part of the room and asked a lot of questions about marching and guarding and Androsia and the area, while Vael turned invisible and started looting the cave. He found a magic bag, some gold solidi and ancient silver coins, some magic glass eyes on the wall, and a couple of potions on a shelf. He threw the magic bag into the wheelbarrow and the rest of the stuff into Larel's Sack, then went back out the secret door. After Vael left, Vallium said something about forgetting something to the southeast before they could return to take their guard shift, and the group left. The fungal foresters were sniffing around the secret door, so Ioannes cast Gift of Tongues on Vael again, so he could explain that there were beastmen on the other side of the secret door who might be hungry and not friendly, so the foresters might want to keep it closed.
Leaving the fungus cave, the group went north a bit to try to finish their map, and found a room with several goblin-sized cave lizards. Not looking for a fight, the group backed away. At that point they went back south and west and decided to try the stairs down. Vael used Larel's Clock to turn invisible, and the Bracteros Effect to hide his light, and went ahead of the group a bit to scout. The stairs went down and west quite a bit, then the passage turned south. To the south was an octagonal room with four exits, and a group of four varumani armed with mattocks were guarding all four exits in ambush position. Vael turned around and went back to the group, indicating that there might be a serious fight if they continued.
At that point the Right for Riches company decided that they had their quota of dead Settites and loot for the day, and started heading back for Gosterwick. Vael did some scouting by Levitation and found what looked like a small old Archontean temple atop one pillar of stone, but didn't get very close. He saw Ptarmis sitting on his big stone throne, but didn't approach close enough to talk. He also got another look at the big plateau on the eastern end of the Cavern with a weird metal pillar on top and a cave going down inside, but did not stop to investigate either.
The group made it back to Gosterwick, with another magic bag, a decent pile of gold and silver coins, a vile of black pudding, and the weapons and armor of four more Settite guards. They had found the stairs down they were looking for.
GM's Comments:
Wicktrimmer really wanted Larel's items. There was a pretty serious debate among the players as to whether to sell or trade any of them, but "We want Wicktrimmer as a friend and knives aren't great weapons and none of us really uses one" won out over "this is a rare and cool magic item so we should keep it just in case", so they sold Larel's Pin. Larel's Sack and Larel's Cloak were more immediately and obviously useful, so none of the players considered selling them. Amusingly, after 23 delves without a magic bag, they found magic bags on consecutive delves. (Vael identified the new one as a regular Bag of Holding, but actually heavier and with a larger capacity than Larel's Sack. We'll see if they keep both or sell one.)
The group didn't want to try another frontal assault on the Forum of Set in the direction the cult would expect, so they went looking for a back door instead, and found exactly what they were looking for. However, they also found four varumani on the other side. We'll see whether they go that way again, or try something else.
The black pudding got Ioannes to -5 HP, 6 away from a death check. He still had a Bless spell, so he was guaranteed to make his first death check at -11 HP, but the one at -22 HP was no guarantee, and the pudding could have gotten him there quickly. Fortunately for the PCs, a five on one numerical advantage is really good. The pudding was pretty tough, and probably could have killed any one of them with surprise, but four of them combined to kill it pretty quickly. (Michael didn't help kill it, as he was trying to pull it off Ioannes instead. Which he managed to do, right as it died.)
Using Larel's Cloak (and some food) to get a friendly reaction from Androsia's beastmen, then turn invisible and loot the room they were guarding, was definitely some Larel-like behavior.
Achievements:
None
XP:
- Explored 7 new locations, good for 1 XP
- Found enough loot to easily get 1 XP each. Maybe 2 XP if they sell the magic items.
- Total 2-3 XP each
Next Week:
No game the next two weeks; GM on vacation. We'd played every week since March, so this ends a good streak, but we'll start another one when I get back.
No comments:
Post a Comment