DFRPG Session 29: The Tower of Scrutiny

Date: 

Horasday, 26th of Besemios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cool, cloudy, chance of rain

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

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

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

Significant NPCs:

Craastonistorax, large ancient green dragon

4 Wraiths

Yamki, giant 3-armed intelligent baboon

Goat

Trefko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Many baboons

Bottleneck, goblin master sergeant

Many goblins

Gwelf, deceased dwarven thief

Ghoul

Mummy

Many large spiders

3 giant boring beetles

The Plan:

Vallium's plan for the week was:

• Leave one Rug of Instant Access at an apartment in the Arcane Practitioners' Club in Gosterwick and then teleport to it from the other Rug every mile or so on the way to Arden Vul, to find the Rugs' maximum range.
• Leave the set of silver chess pieces they found last week on the dam as tribute for Craastonistorax.
• Try exploring the square tower next to the Forum in the ruins of Arden Vul.  First try to get in the front door, then search for secret doors, then see if the Eyes of Set allowed seeing through the darkness on the stairs down from the roof, then try using ropes or magical flight to send someone down the stairs.
• Go through the Pyramid of Thoth to the Well of Light, check on Yamki and the baboons, give the baboons some food if they're behaving, and trade Trefko a live goat (teleported in from Gosterwick using the Rugs) for his Dwarven Life-Stone.  Give Trefko a sheet to cover the mirror at the bottom of the Well when the party isn't using it, rather than having baboons poop on it.
• Explore the exit up from the Well of Light, northwest of the Ruby Chair.
• Explore the Howling Caves beyond the portcullis.
• Go shopping at the Goblin Market.

What Actually Happened:

The Right for Riches company, without Vael or Michael but with Coinbase the head Grudge Brigade Mercenary, left Gosterwick just before dawn on Horasday.  They had a Rug of Instant Access spread out in one apartment, and a live goat left in another apartment (not the same one with the Rug).  On the ten-mile walk to the Cliff Face below Arden Vul, they stopped every mile or so, spread out the Rug, and used it to teleport someone to Gosterwick and back.  When they reached the Cliff Face, everyone except Coinbase stepped through the Rug, Coinbase Levitated up the Cliff Face with the Rug, and then everyone stepped back through the Rug to join Coinbase at the top of the cliff.  Overall, playing with the Rugs took a couple of minutes, but not having to walk all the way up the Long Stair saved over an hour, so this shortened the trip by about an hour while proving that the Rugs' range was at least ten miles.

After reaching the ruins, they walked over to the dam and left a silver Archontean chess set as tribute for the dragon.  They then walked over to the squat square tower by the Forum, where they had long ago found locked doors, bodies on the roof, and stairs down into impenetrable magical darkness.  This time the doors were still locked, and none of the many keys on Vallium's keyring fit.  The whole group circled the base of the tower looking for secret doors, and Uvash found one on the back side of the tower.  Everyone took a close look and nobody saw an obvious way to open it, until Ioannes found a small keyhole.  None of Vallium's keys fit, and nobody had lockpicks or a Lockmaster spell, and the door looked like very sturdy stone that they would not be able to break through, so they gave up on opening the secret door.

Next Coinbase Levitated everyone up, one at a time, riding in the Living Wheelbarrow.  The group assembled above the dark stairs and tried using the Eyes of Set to see through the darkness, but they did not work.  Vallium then borrowed the Ring of Climbing from Uvash, tied a rope around his waist, wrapped the rope around the ibis-head statue, and had Uvash hold onto the other end of the rope.  Vallium then went down the rickety wooden stairs, through the magical darkness, until he came out the other side into a stone passage where his Continual Light stone worked.  He yelled up that he was fine and they could send the next person down.

Ioannes came down next, again with a rope around his waist, but this time the wooden stairs collapsed under him.  Fortunately, Uvash was attentive with the rope and pulled to keep Ioannes from falling more than a couple of feet.  Uvash pulled Ioannes back up, and they switched to Plan B, where Ioannes and Uvash stepped through the Rug, then Coinbase Levitated down the broken stairs with the Rug, with a rope connecting him to Vallium.  Once Coinbase arrived next to Vallium, he laid down the Rug and the others stepped through.

Ioannes noticed that the Sanctity level was low; this place felt evil.  Uvash agreed.  There was a closed door to the north and a passage going south then east, which they followed.  The passage ended at a doorway where the door had been destroyed.  Beyond was a small room containing some destroyed desks, destroyed chairs, destroyed office supplies, another destroyed door on the far side, and a couple of old corpses.  Ioannes tried to diagnose the cause of death and didn't see any obvious wounds.

After failing to find any treasure, they continued north through the other broken door, then west to an intact door, then opened it to find a small room with a spiral stairway going down.  The other door had some writing in blood: "Do not open the doors below! They are waiting!"  Everyone was a bit creeped out, but they went down the stairs anyway.

One level down, they entered a room with three bodies on the floor, two doors (one of them spiked shut from this side), and the spiral stairs continuing down.  The bodies looked from their equipment like a warrior, a wizard, and a Thothian priest.  The equipment included some magic mail armor, a magic shield, a silver scroll case, a magic staff, a greatsword, and a pouch full of small gems.  Vallium shoved all of that into Larel's Sack.  Ioannes examined the bodies and again did not see an obvious cause of death.

They opened the unspiked door and went east then south until they reached a locked door.  Vallium slammed into it hard enough to break the lock.  Inside the room were pegs with ten different magical Thothian masks on them, picturing humans and baboons and ibises.  Nobody felt like trying one on, but they were all magical, so all of them went into the sack.  The door on the other side of the room was locked, and Vallium could not break this one.  They doubled back to the room with the stairs, took all the spikes out, and opened the southern door, which was only stuck not locked.  It led south then east to the other side of the locked door they could not open, so they figured they were done with this level and went back to the spiral stairs and down.

The spiral stairs led to another small room with two exits, and continued down further.  On the floor were a coil of magical rope, a lantern, and some lamp oil.  Vallium put the magic rope in the sack but left the other stuff.  Both doors were locked.  Vallium shouldered both of them hard, but failed to get either one open.  However, he had a file, so he went to work destroying hinges.  The hinges failed before the file broke, so the eastern door was destroyed.

They went east then south to another locked door.  Vallium used the file on this one too.  The southeastern room contained a trap door in the floor, with no obvious locks.  It also had a bunch of pegs on the walls, most of them with the tattered remains of orange Thothian robes, and one containing a bright orange silk robe in good shape, with blue embroidery.  It did not appear magical, so people were suspicious how this robe survived, but Vallium shoved it into the sack anyway.  Vallium then destroyed the hinges on another door, and led the group west.

They could now see the huge brass double doors at the front of the tower from the inside.  There was also some kind of central shaft in the middle of the tower, with a pillar in the middle with Thothian images, and a corpse on the floor in front of it.  The corpse had magical leather armor, a shortsword, and a pouch, so Vallium started taking its stuff and putting it in the sack.  While he did that, he was rudely interrupted by a floating spectral creature coming out of the central shaft.  It reached out with a ghostly hand to touch him.  Vallium fast-drew his sword to parry, but the creature's hand went right through the sword.  Coinbase, standing right next to Vallium, tried a sacrificial block with his magic shield, and that did stop the attack.  So it appeared the wraith was affected by magic shields but not non-magical swords.

A fight began, where Vallium and Coinbase both shield-bashed the wraith (because they had magic shields but not magic weapons), Ioannes started casting Affect Spirits on Vallium's sword, and Uvash moved into position.  They hit the wraith a few times but didn't seem to hurt it much.  In addition to its ghostly touch attack, it also did some kind of ranged contest of Will against Uvash that did enough damage to blow his Bless spell off, and everyone standing near it felt some kind of ghostly toxic effect that was not actually poison.

And then a second wraith appeared.  The fight continued.  Vallium got a good hack in once his sword could Affect Spirits, and Uvash pounded a wraith with Finisher, his mace enchanted against undead.  But that was not enough to stop a wraith.

And then a third wraith appeared.  At that point Coinbase said it was probably time to run.  And everyone did.  And the wraiths pursued.  As a fourth wraith appeared.

The whole group ran south, then east, then north, then west to the spiral stairs, then up two levels, with the wraiths sniffing behind.  Coinbase, the fastest runner, got far enough ahead that he stopped for a couple of seconds to cast Flight on Vallium.  Once they reached the top of the spiral stairs, they ran around the upper level to the bottom of the broken wooden stairs leading to the roof.  By then there was some distance to the wraiths, so Vallium picked up Ioannes and carried him to the roof, then came back and carried Uvash up, while Coinbase Levitated himself to the roof.  Nobody had any safety ropes this time, but they were pretty sure the mana level was fine based on their entry, and nobody thought they could afford the time to set up ropes.

Once everyone reached the roof, Vallium and Coinbase ferried them to the ground at the base of the tower.  No wraiths appeared to be following them, so Ioannes took a few minutes to heal everyone of their wraith wounds, then rested for a few minutes.  That was enough of the Tower of Scrutiny for one day, so the group walked north to the Pyramid of Thoth, manipulated its arms to open the trap door, and went down the steps to the Glory of Thoth.

Vallium knocked on the door and announced himself, and the goblin guards let them in.  There were even more goblins in Upper Goblintown than last time, and many of them were holding small orange gourds full of alcohol.  The giant ibis-headed Thoth statue was wearing a pink turban, sort of resembling the one King Weskenim wore.  Vallium mentioned to Bottleneck that this was the goblins' third week in a row of partying, and Bottleneck said that it was because they had continued to expand their territory, and also it was a goblin holiday celebration.

The group went south and west to the indoor pyramid, flipped the control rod to teleport to the other indoor pyramid on the Well of Light level, and then walked over to visit Yamki.  Yamki said that Trefko was still in his room and was still grumpy but was not causing trouble.  He said that Sisko's harem were still rude but they did not appear to have destroyed anything.  Vallium was satisfied with Yamki's story and gave him a large pile of meat that he pulled out of Larel's Sack.  Yamki gave some of the meat to each of the nearby female baboons, then headed south to the Howling Caves to feed the others.

The group headed north and west to Trefko's room.  They knocked on the door and Trefko opened it.  Trefko asked if they had his goat.  Vallium said to wait a minute, then went around a corner, spread out the Rug, walked through to the apartment in Gosterwick, went to the apartment next door with the goat, grappled the goat, and carried it back through the Rug.  He carried the squirming goat over toward Trefko.  Coinbase tried a Levitation on the goat to make it float peacefully, but the goat stubbornly resisted the spell.  Trefko ended the commotion by reaching out with two of his huge arms to grab the goat.  He then removed his dwarven life-stone necklace with his other two hands, and gave it to Uvash.  The life-stone said "Schist Corundam" in Dwarven Runic, which Uvash identified as a dwarven name, with Schist being the given name and Corundam a clan name.  Vallium asked Trefko how things were going, and he said he preferred his quiet room to all the noisy kids in the Howling Caves.  Vallium said that was fine, as long as Trefko kept the others from vandalizing the mirrors.  He gave Trefko a sheet that he could use to cover the mirror when it wasn't being used.

The party then went north and west to the hole in the ceiling.  Vallium pulled a ladder out of Larel's Sack to make it easier to reach, and everyone went up. They went north through a narrow natural cavern passage, until it opened into a cavern.  The cavern contained a half-eaten dwarf corpse, which Ioannes recognized as Gwelf, the dwarf they had freed from Gerrilad's prison, who had then run off.  Gwelf appeared to have taken a fatal blow from a large cutting weapon.  Uvash cast Final Rest on Gwelf, while Ioannes cast Bless on Uvash to replace the Bless that had absorbed a wraith attack.

The room also contained a couple of statues, a 4' marble whippet and a 5' bronze Ptah.  The bronze statue took all of Vallium's strength to budge.  Uvash spotted a single ancient gold solidi coin on the floor.  Coinbase cast Lighten Burden to make it a bit easier to manage, and Vallium took both statues and Gwelf's body through the Rug to their apartment.  While he was there, he dumped a bunch of newly found loot out of Larel's Sack.

There were two exits from the cavern, a passage north at ground level and a passage west about 25' up.  Coinbase Levitated up to take a look, but didn't see much.  The group decided "Right for Riches" meant north, and then they turned right at a fork.  This led to a passage that went down a long way, as the passage got drier.  After about half a mile of descending, the party decided to turn around and went back.

They took a few more right turns and then entered a huge underground graveyard.  There were sarcophagi scattered all over, some with blank lids, others with gisants with pictures of people and sometimes names carved in Mithric, always "Brother Someone."  Coinbase tentatively flew around to map the room, and found several mausoleums along the north and south walls.  The room felt creepy, with Low Sanctity.  After much discussion, they decided to take the lid off a sarcophagus near the entrance where it would be easier to run.  Inside was an inert mummy and some ancient silver coins.  They decided not to rob the grave, and opened a second one.  This one contained a ghoul, who attacked them.  It was four on one, so the ghoul didn't last long.  There was also some silver in this one, and they decided to take it, since the ghoul had attacked them.

After more discussion, they decided to open the door of the mausoleum in the southwest corner.  Inside was a platform with a mummy on it.  The mummy sat up, and everyone ran -- after a recent fight with two mummies, and fleeing for their lives from four wraiths, they didn't feel like a fight with one mummy plus a possibly large number of its friends.  Once they left the graveyard room, nothing seemed to follow.

They took another right turn and went northeast, to where they spotted three giant beetles munching on the corpse of a bull-headed biped.  Coinbase summoned a couple of semi-illusionary phantoms, and they grappled the beetles while Vallium stabbed them.  There was no treasure, but Vallium rug-teleported the half-eaten minotaur corpse and one of the beetle corpses back to their apartment.

They then went west until they found a room with a lot of spider webs.  Some large spiders started jumping down and bit one of Coinbase's illusions, actually dispelling it.  There were enough spiders that the group decided they should leave rather than contining the fight, and they fled from the third battle of the delve.

The group found a crossroads with three exits, labeled "E" and "W" and "N" in big red letters.  They continued in the direction they thought was southeast (despite the labels) until Vallium accidentally discovered a pit trap and started to fall in.  He used his Luck to reroll his DX check then caught himself on the edge.  After he climbed out, they pulled the cover off and looked in the pit.  Not finding any treasure, they continued and found a second covered pit.  There was nothing inside that one either.  After bypassing the pits, they made it back to their entrance to this level, and went back to the Well of Light.  They visited the Library to grab the broken tripod for the mirror, and put it in Larel's Sack to bring it back to Gosterwick for repair.  Then they walked back home.

GM's Comments:

They escaped the Tower of Scrutiny without dying.  The wraiths are no joke.  They found the Tower back in Session 1 with 125 point PCs, and if they'd gone in back then, it probably would have been a TPK.  But now they're powerful enough to run away more effectively.  (Also, props to Coinbase for calling for retreat at the right time.  Another couple of turns and they might not have made it.)

When the party found that deeply descending tunnel and turned around, they didn't actually want to turn around.  I told them the map they were approaching wasn't ready, so they had to turn around (or pause there), but it would be ready for next session.  This is the first time this has happened in this campaign, so they got an achievement for it.  (It's a one-time-only achievement as I don't want them deliberately trying to exceed the limits of the mapped area.)

The Rugs of Instant Access are the kind of magic item that totally changes the game.  They players are still figuring them out, but got a lot of use out of them.  (Including questionable uses like teleporting random monster corpses back to their apartments.)

Achievements:

• Outsmarted the GM: 1 XP for reaching an area where the map wasn't ready (one time only)

XP:

• Exploration: 1 XP for 15 new locations
• Loot: It sounds like they'll sell enough of the magic armor and masks to get 2 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 4 XP

Next Week:

My guess is they won't go back to the Tower of Scrutiny.  They might resume exploring the tunnels above the Well of Light, or try to finish the unexplored parts of the Well of Light or Halls of Thoth, or go looking for the Troll Lifts, or something else.  They keep finding new places to explore faster than they finish exploring old places.