DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34c: Burglary and Death

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios through Lunday 19th of Dikaios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Significant NPCs:

Onyx, cat

Unidentified dead human thief

Lyssandra, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Pelteon, co-owner of the Arcane Practitioners' Club

Many Disciplined

Several trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard, slaver, and baboon kidnapper

Eustathios Skleros, Drome investigator

Barnaby Goodbarrel, lawyer

Sakeon, horse dealer

Ravi, groom and teamster

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Aelfred, enslaved Thorcin man

Ragnar, enslaved Wiskin man

Basil, enslaved Archontean man

The Plan:

• Rescue Bobo and Bifki from Tikun Thane

What Happened:

While the rest of the Right for Riches company was invading the Tower of the Ape, Uvash was in the House of the Gods in Gosterwick, discussing Zodarrim with his small group of mostly dwarven faithful.  He was surprisingly interrupted by Onyx the cat, who ran into the House at full speed, meowing at Uvash like someone was standing on his tail.  He grabbed the hem of Uvash's mail vestments and started tugging, until Uvash excused himself and followed the cat to the south.  Onyx led Uvash to the Arcane Practitioner's Club, where many people were standing outside, watching a fire on the top floor.  They saw Lyssandra through the top floor windows, using spells to put out the fire.

With the fire out, Lyssandra came out and saw Uvash.  She said the fire had started in one of their apartments and asked if he knew what was going on.  He did not.  She asked if he knew where the others were, and he said they had gone to Arden Vul without him because he had church.  She asked about the crispy dead guy in their apartment, and Uvash had no idea what she was talking about, and went up with her to look.  There was a horribly burned body in their apartment, with a backpack full of their stuff, and their other things scattered all over the room, some of them intact, some destroyed.  The statue head they had recovered from the Great Cavern under Arden Vul sat alone in the closet, grinning malevolently.  A knife Uvash did not recognize sat next to the statue.

Lyssandra asked Uvash to stick around to answer questions from The Drome's investigators.  She left, and Uvash started tidying up the room.  He put the slightly burned Rug of Instant Access back in the center of the room, and started separating the broken and intact items.

Meanwhile Vael and Vallium stepped back through the teleportation portal from the Tower of the Ape back to the ruins of Arden Vul to join Ioannes, who was just waking up after being horribly wounded by a Disciplined's scimitar and then being force-fed a Great Healing potion.  All three were exhausted: Vael from spellcasting, Vallium from fighting under the influence of Great Haste, and Ioannes from being stabbed.  All three rested for a few minutes, then Ioannes started using Recover Energy to help the others recover, while Vallium watched the portal in case anyone followed them through it.  Nobody did, so Vael eventually tried the Rug of Instant Access again, and ended up back in the apartment in Gosterwick, where Uvash was still cleaning up.

After an explanation of the mess and the dead guy from Uvash, Vael went downstairs to talk to Lyssandra and Pelteon and try to get them to recharge his power item.  They asked him to stay around to talk to the Drome, but he said his friends were in mortal danger and he'd be back later.  He and Uvash then went back through the Rug to Arden Vul to join Vallium and Ioannes.  All four then used the portal to the Tower of the Ape.

The level of the tower with the teleporter was empty.  They went down a couple of levels and found three Disciplined waiting in formation, with a couple of baboons with spears behind them.  Tikun Thane was not in sight.

Another combat against the Disciplined began.  Vael cast Blur on both Vallium and Uvash.  Uvash used Divine Grace, then stepped into combat beside Vallium.  Vallium and Uvash injured all three Disciplined, but one of them landed a fatal blow on Uvash in reply.  Vael and Ioannes dragged Uvash's body up the stairs, while Vallium kept fighting the Disciplined and baboons.  He critically injured one and disarmed another, but hurt his weapon arm to the point where he could no longer fight effectively.  He tried a couple of shield bashes, and Vael dropped a Smoke spell to distract the baboons.  Vallium eventually decided he could not defeat the Disciplined without his sword, and they all retreated back up the stairs and back through the portal.  The surviving Disciplined and baboons did not pursue.

Ioannes took Uvash's body back through the Rug to Gosterwick, then dragged him to the Church of Mitra, as he knew Jador the Just was capable of Resurrection.  Jador needed a very large donation, plus the help of all the clerics of both Mitra and Demma in town (including Ioannes) to perform the ritual.  After a few hours of holy ritual, Uvash rose from the dead, exhausted.  Ioannes got one of the lesser clerics of Demma to cast a Major Healing on Uvash, and then they went back to their apartment and through the Rug back to Arden Vul.

Vael and Vallium were watching the portal there.  Vael went back through the Rug to get his recharged power item, and ran into the Drome's investigators.  After answering a bunch of questions about the thief and how he ended up burned to death, the investigators let him go.  He went back through the Rug.  They then tried going back through the portal, but it failed to activate.  Vael looked it it closely and said he thought the portal on this side looked the same, but theorized that the one on the other side had been disabled.

Not wanting to give up on catching Tikun Thane and rescuing Bobo and Bifki, the party went back to the Beacon, then used the Rug to teleport to Gosterwick.  First they went to their lawyer, Barnaby Goodbarrel, and explained what had happened in their apartment.  He said he didn't think they'd done anything illegal, and advised telling the truth to the Drome.  He went with them to the House of Sight, where they gave a statement to the investigator.  Not wanting to walk the three days to Newmarket if they could help it, they then went to Sakeon the Horse Whisperer to hire a carriage.  Sakeon said there was no regularly scheduled carriage service, but he did have a carriage and some horses and could spare a man to drive them to Newmarket.  They paid Sakeon and took a long, cold, boring carriage ride to Newmarket.  When they arrived, Vael conspicuously went shopping, and actually found some Giant Spider Silk.  Then they rented a room and ate dinner.  Late that night, the other three stepped through the Rug to the Beacon, then Vael turned invisible with Larel's Cloak and Levitated over to the Tower of the Ape.  He flew around the tower, didn't see anyone through the windows, but detected a low-mana zone around the tower.  He flew through it to the balcony, spread out the Rug, stepped through to alert the others, then they all went back to the Tower.

The doors from the balcony to the middle tower level were barred, but Vael used Lockmaster to break in.  They searched the top two levels of the tower and didn't find anyone.  They went downstairs and didn't find anyone there either.  They looked at the teleporter, and Vael confirmed that it had somehow been deactivated but not destroyed.  They searched the library and saw that about half the books were gone.  They went through some doors they had not previously opened and found some barracks, a storeroom, and a magical cold storage room full of fresh meat.  Having found no sign of the wizard or any captured baboons, they started looking for secret doors.  Ioannes eventually found one, but it was locked.  Vael magically unlocked it, revealing stairs down to a basement.

The basement looked like a wizard's lab, but it had clearly been mostly emptied.  There was some lab equipment remaining, along with a few broken pieces of magical items.  There was a locked door, as well as some stairs down.  The door resisted Vael's Lockmaster spell, so they went down the stairs.  There they saw 2 cells, one with 3 men, the other with 2 baboons.  The men asked for water, and then the baboons gestured for the same.  Vallium gave food and water to both groups through the bars, then went looking for keys, while Vael talked to the men.  All three had been captured by Settite slavers, then sold to Tikun Thane at the slave market in the Forum of Set.  They had been fed a diet of mostly raw meat and forced to perform exercises and fight each other with sticks while one of the Disciplined had given combat instructions and whipped the losers.  Then, about three days ago, their guard had run upstairs to deal with some emergency, and since then nobody had returned to feed them.

Vallium found a key and unlocked both cells.  Vael searched both cells and surprisingly found a no-mana zone in one corner of the baboons' cell, but nothing else interesting.

Asking the prisoners to wait, the group went up a floor and Vael used Shape Earth to punch a hole in the wall next to the door he could not open.  Beyond was a large storeroom full of shelves.  It had been mostly emptied of valuables, but Ioannes grabbed a bunch of mushrooms, and Vael took some empty chests.  Before leaving, Vael cast Seeker on Tikun Thane, and got a vision of him in a windowless room, surrounded by piles of wizardly stuff.  He followed up with Trace and found that Tikun Thane was in Narsileon, meaning he'd made a three-week trip in three days.  They assumed he'd used some kind of teleportation.

Vael talked to the three men, saying they were free and could stay here in Newmarket, or come back in the carriage to Gosterwick, or that they'd be interested in hiring one of them if any of them could read.  None claimed to be able to read, but Basil said he'd be willing to learn, so Vael hired him to turn pages for Akla-Chah and Stamelis in the Beacon.  Ioannes used his Animal Handling skill to convince the baboons to let Vallium lift them through the Rug back to the Beacon, where Vael used Blink Other to pop them through the roof to the surface ruins of Arden Vul.  From there, both ran over the bridge and back toward the cliff face.  Seeing that the baboons knew the way back to the Howling Caves, Vael and Vallium went back to the Tower, took Basil through the Rug to introduce him to Akla-Chah and Stamelis, then went back through the Rug one more time to the Tower.  They detached the non-functioning teleportation portal from the wall, trying not to destroy it, and Vallium carried the heavy thing back to their carriage.  They then took the three-day carriage ride back to Gosterwick, along with the other two prisoners.  When they reached Gosterwick, Vallium gave both men some money for supplies, and they thanked their rescuers and left for their respective farms.

GM's Comments:

Uvash was the first PC to die in Arden Vul.  Fortunately for him, his body was recovered and there was enough money and goodwill for a Resurrection.

The PCs were unlucky to have their apartment burgled.  The thief was unlucky to touch the wrong statue's eyes and experience a 9d Explosive Fireball at point-blank range.  The PCs were lucky to have their Rug of Instant Access survive the fireball, though they lost a lot of other stuff.  (Never in my life have I rolled so many item survival rolls.)

Basil is the Right for Riches Company's first employee.

XP:

• Exploration: 63 new locations across 3 sessions: 2 XP for most of the party, 1 XP for Uvash
• Loot: They found quite a bit.  Not sure what they'll sell or how they'll split it, but probably 2 XP.
• Achievements: The Rescuers, 1 XP for rescuing 3 human and 2 baboon prisoners

Next Week:

They plan to go back to Goblintown to get their map from Temrin and have Vael invisibly explore the secret door they found high on the wall of the Goblin Market.  Then they plan to go to Upper Goblintown and ask Thoth for one of his secret names, then investigate the bronze floating head, then explore the glowing room in the northwestern part of the Halls of Thoth, then check out the unexplored parts of the northeastern parts of the Halls of Thoth mentioned on a map they found.

Limited Point Consolidation House Rule

In DF Whiterock, I allowed fairly unlimited point consolidation.  For example, I let a PC reduce 10 DX skills from [2] to [1] points each, plus pay 10 more points, for a point of DX [20].  As long as nothing went down.  See https://dfwhiterock.blogspot.com/2018/09/update-on-trading-in-house-rule.html

I think that was a bit too good.  So in DFRPG Arden Vul, I have restricted this further.  I'm still allowing buying attributes piecemeal: you can trade in 1 HP [2] and 1 point of Striking ST [5] along with 3 points to get a full point of ST [10].  And I'm obviously still allowing leveling up leveled advantages: obviously you can trade Fit [5] plus 10 points for Very Fit [15].  (I think the latter is RAW, not even a house rule.)  But I'm not allowing taking points out of skills (including spells) to bump attributes anymore.

(The fine print: you can only trade in secondary attributes that were bought independently; you can't do this with stuff from a racial template.  If you're a dwarf and you got Lifting ST 2 [6] as part of your dwarf template, you always have to keep that Lifting ST 2.  You can't just trade it in when you raise your ST.)

My justification for not allowing it for skills is that skills aren't always used against their base attribute.  For example, Traps is listed as an IQ-based skill, but it's very often used with Per (for finding traps) or DX (to disarm traps) instead.  So when you take points out of a skill and put them in the controlling attribute, it gets worse when you use it with another attribute, which breaks the "nothing gets worse" goal of the house rule.

I see the counter-argument for spells: they're only used against IQ+Magery (or Power Investiture or Bardic Talent), so taking points out of spells to boost IQ or Magery (etc.) should be fine.  I see the point, but I reject it for two reasons.  One, I want simple house rules, not complicated ones full of exceptions.  Two, spellcasters are already too good, so they don't deserve house rules to make them even better.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34b: Tower of the Ape

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Many Disciplined

Several trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard and alleged baboon kidnapper

The Plan:

• Rescue Bobo and Bifki from Tikun Thane

What Happened:

The battle resumed, with Great Hasted, Blurred Vallium at the front of the murder room fighting two Disciplined and four trained baboons, with Ioannes and Vael behind him.  

Situation at the start of the session

The disarmed Disciplined ran to a weapon rack in the northeast corner of the tower to grab another scimitar, while Vallium defeated the remaining Disciplined and parried and blocked several baboon spears.  Meanwhile, a murder hole opened in the roof of the murder closet, and a Disciplined above dropped an Alchemist's Fire grenade.  Ioannes heard something above and got his shield up, to try to block the grenade against the wall.  The grenade burst against the shield, dousing Ioannes in flame, but he was unharmed thanks to his Salamander Amulet.

Vallium charged into the tower to engage the remaining Disciplined, and Ioannes followed him into the room, on fire, and shield rushed a baboon.  The baboon dodged.  The Disciplined took a stab at Ioannes's open back, and would have grievously wounded him, but Ioannes was saved by his Bless, which went away.  Meanwhile Vael cast Create Fire up through the murder hole, igniting the floor above, and forcing the Disciplined grenadiers above to retreat.

Vael finished off the baboons, then headed up the spiral stairs to the west, with Vael and Ioannes behind him.  The the top of the spiral stairs was a short hallway to the east, ending in a closed door.  Vallium tried opening the door, but it was locked.  Then the door started jiggling, with the metallic scraping sound of someone inserting a key.  Vallium stepped back and waited to attack anyone coming through.  The door opened, there were two Disciplined on the other side.  Vallium defeated both of them.

Vael went north, to a room with a magical fire still burning on the floor to the west.  There was a staircase leading up.  Vael went up the stairs and found an attic room with no exits, but a backpack and some clothes along the wall in the corner.  He gathered all the clothes into the backpack, then took the backpack back down the stairs.

Meanwhile, Ioannes and Vallium saw some more Disciplined coming up the spiral stairs to the west.  Vallium took position at the top of the stairs and defeated several Disciplined.  Then he saw a man in a black robe at the bottom of the stairs, who started firing magical missiles at him.  Vallium got hit by a couple; they went right through his armor and shield, and also appeared unaffected by his Missile Shield amulet.  But he dodged most of them, while he continued beating back the Disciplined.  He pulled out a Magebane potion and threw it down the stairs.  It exploded, releasing a cloud of green gas.  Tikun Thane held his breath to avoid breathing the gas, and retreated away from the cloud.  A few seconds later, he cast a Purify Air spell, clearing the Magebane gas, then resumed position at the bottom of the stairs, throwing missiles at Vallium.

Vael came back down the stairs from the attic, used Larel's Cloak to turn invisible, and then Levitated over the stairway to ambush Tikun Thane.  He charged up a Lightning spell, aimed, then fired it at the wizard directly below him.  The lightning was accurate, but did surprisingly little damage to the wizard, and failed to stun him.  As Tikun Thane refocused his missile attacks on Vael, Vael turned invisible again, and retreated out of line of sight.

Vallium eventually defeated all the Disciplined on the stairs, and started down after the mage.  The battle continued back on the level where they had teleported in.  When Vallium caught up with Tikun Thane, the wizard Blinked away, out of sight.

With their opponent temporarily out of sight, the Right for Riches company spent some time running around the upper levels of the tower.  They went back up to the room with the magical fire, and opened two singed chests, one with silver coins and one with gold coins.  They found a bedroom but only found clothing and bedding to steal there.  They then went out the doors on the level where they started, and found a balcony around the middle of the tower.  On the balcony was a small shack, but after they all gathered outside to attack whatever was inside, they found it was only an outhouse.

They went down another level, and found a library, a dining room, and a kitchen.  They took the one magical book in the library (a spellbook, with a warning on the cover that anyone taking it would be killed), as well as a few jars of spices from the kitchen.  The spiral stairs ended there, but they found another staircase down.

As they took the stairs down, they saw Tikun Thane, with almost a dozen more Disciplined and a few more baboons, formed up in formation for a final battle.  Not wanting to charge into the room, they went back up the stairs to the level with the teleporter.  Vallium drank potions of Agility, Flight, and Strength.  A few minutes later the Disciplined started coming up the stairs in formation.

While Vallium fought them, Tikun Thane showed up on the balcony and started firing missiles from behind.  Vallium responded by flying at him, much faster than the wizard expected.  Tikun Thane Blinked away from Vallium's attack, farther north on the balcony.  Vallium kept up his pursuit, and Tikun Thane eventually Blinked out of sight, presumably back down.  With Vallium no longer holding the line, the Disciplined engaged Ioannes, and one of them managed to hit him in the back, wounding him badly.  (Vael was nearby but still invisible.)  Ioannes ran for the teleporter, and one of the Disciplined hit him in the back, almost killing him.  He fell down, and passed out a couple of seconds later.  With Tikun Thane gone, Vallium returned to the fight.  Meanwhile, Vael picked up Ioannes and pulled him through the portal.  Back on the other side, he pulled a Greater Healing potion out of Ioannes's pouch and poured it down the cleric's throat.  Once Ioannes no longer appeared to be in danger of dying, Vael re-activated the teleporter and came back through to the Tower of the Ape.  He arrived to see Vallium finishing off the last Disciplined on that level.

We stopped there, with Ioannes unconscious on the Arden Vul side of the teleporter and Vael and Vallium in a middle level of the Tower of the Ape, surrounded by bodies of about a dozen Disciplined and several baboons.  They had made Tikun Thane retreat, and eliminated many of his minions, but had not yet achieved their goal, and had decided not to return to Arden Vul or Gosterwick just yet.

GM's Comments:

Full-session battles are exhausting.  It was actually four separate battles, but they were all in the same tower against the same group of opponents, so it felt like one long slog.

By the end, Tikun Thane had been forced to retreat three times (once by a Magebane grenade, once by Vallium eliminating all the Disciplined on the stairs, and once by Vallium flying past all the Disciplined in the tower to engage him in melee on the balcony) and had been singed by lightning once, but had not been defeated.  Many of his minions were down, though.

On the PC side, Ioannes was nearly fatally wounded; he lost his Bless and later needed Luck to survive a death check.  Vallium lost his Bless and needed Luck several times.  Vael spent most of the battle invisible, so was not injured, but burned a lot of energy casting spells.

XP: 

They stopped again in mid-delve, so no XP was awarded.  Anything they did this session and the previous session will be added to next session's XP, if they make it out.

Next Week:

They're still trying to defeat Tikun Thane and try to rescue Bobo and Bifki.  After that, they can try to reunite with Uvash and figure out why their Rugs of Instant Access stopped working.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 34a: Hunting the Thane

Date: 

Lunday, 12th of Dikaios, 2993 AE 

Weather: 

Cold, partly cloudy

Player Characters: 

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)

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

Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Yamki, 3-armed intelligent giant baboon

Bobo and Bifki, kidnapped large albino baboons

Many large albino baboons

Inkor, 4-armed intelligent giant baboon

3 sand worms

Ranko, 4-armed intelligent giant baboon

2 carcass creepers

4 huge spiders

6 ibis gargoyles

6 shadows

3 Disciplined

4 trained large albino baboons

Tikun Thane, wizard and alleged baboon kidnapper

The Plan:

• Buy some meat
• Perform the Litany of Light
• Give meat to the baboons
• Get Yamki to show the paths south of the Howling Caves, where the Thane went
• Track down the Thane and rescue Bobo and Bifki

What Happened:

Uvash had church business and no Grudge Brigade mercenaries were available, so only three members of the Right for Riches company were on hand to try to find The Thane (who Vallium presumes is the same person as the wizard Tikun Thane in Newmarket) and rescue Bobo and Bifki.  They used the Rugs of Instant Access to teleport from Gosterwick back to the Beacon, under the ruins of Arden Vul.  Vael used Blink to pop through the stone cover over the stairs to the surface, then set down a Rug so the others could join him.  They walked over a bridge then across the Forum to the Well of Light, where Vael Levitated down, then again used the Rug to bring the others.

It was a mostly cloudy day, so they decided not to try the Litany of Light, which requires sunlight.  They went east toward the Howling Caves, where Yamki was waiting with many other baboons.  Yamki agreed to lead them south across the Howling Caves and show them the passage leading toward the Cliff Face, but he said he couldn't take them all the way there, as he needed to stay in his territory and didn't get along with some of the other baboons to the south.  He warned the group about Ranko in particular.

In the cave immediately south of the Howling Caves, they ran into several other baboons.  Yamki had a conversation with them, and said they had seen the Thane and his minions when they had come to kidnap Bobo and Bifki, but not where they had come from.

The group continued roughly south through the caverns, looking for both any sign of Tikun Thane and for an exit to the Cliff Face.  They encountered several groups of large albino baboons.  The aggressive-looking ones were intimidated away using Vael's Thunderclap spell.  They found a few pools of water, and Vallium dove into each looking for treasure.  One contained a silver ring inscribed "To Guivrel, with love from Lankios."

Eventually they reached a cavern containing a 40' tall cliff, over which a four-armed baboon with a huge bow presided.  The baboon, Inkor, gave them a chance to explain their business.  They explained that they were looking for Bobo and Bifki for Yamki, and after some discussion with the smaller baboons, Inkor decided to let them pass.  Vallium used the Ring of Climbing to climb down the cliff, then Vael Levitated back up carrying the Ring so that Ioannes could also use it.

They continued south and west until they found the exit to the Cliff Face.  It was high above the Long Stair, a difficult climb down, though the baboons fleeing from Vael's latest Thunderclap managed it easily enough.  Vael flew around a bit looking for a better trail, but concluded that it would require excellent climbing skills or magical assistance to be worth the risk.

They headed back north into the twisty passages and explored different routes.  At one point they found a cave with a sandy floor and some occasional rocks breaking through.  When they tried crossing it, Vallium spotted something moving under the sand and warned the others back.  Vael used a Windstorm spell to move sand around until a sand worm was revealed, and then Vallium ran up and killed it.  A couple more worms came out of the sand to ambush him, but they failed to bite through his scale armor, and he killed them too.  When no more worms emerged they dug around in the sand for bit, then Vael decided that was a waste of effort and cast Seek Earth and Seek Magic to look for treasure.  The nearest gold and platinum were pretty far below, but both silver and magic were a bit to the south.  So they headed that way until they found a couple of corpses, one of whom had a silver magical eye, along with some other items like a sword and some notes and a rose quartz stone.

Continuing to explore, they ran into another giant 4-armed baboon, Ranko, and his followers.  He was aggressive and seemed ready to fight, but the group bribed them with the meat they were carrying in Larel's Sack and were allowed safe passage through Ranko's territory.  They found a beastman corpse, with a spear and some armor and an interesting badge of a mailed fist.  Later they found a cave-in.  Vael thought it looked dangerous to try to crawl around it, and cast several Shape Earth spells to try to make it safe to pass.  This uncovered a corpse with some fancy boots and a wand.  It also uncovered some Carcass Creepers who were waiting in ambush, and who were surprised by their cover suddenly evaporating.  Vallium made quick work of them.

Heading north past the cave-in, they were ambushed by a few huge spiders.  Vallium killed them, and Vael cut through some webs to reveal the body of a dwarf, with a magic metal shield and another magic silver eye and a magic green glass square.  Vallium said they should use the Rug to put the fragile square (and any other heavy stuff they'd rather not carry) back in their apartment.  However, when he spread out the Rug and said the command word, nothing happened.  They retried several times, and Vael cast Seek Gate to try to diagnose the problem, but the Rug still showed itself as a closed magic gate, as expected.  It just would not open.

With their map of the caverns complete and no sign of the Thane, they decided to use a charge from their Wand of See Secrets to look for secret doors, and found a concealed door on the west wall of the spider cave.  Moving quickly to try to find as much as possible before the wand's effect ran out, Vael went west and saw a secret door on the western cavern wall.  He also spotted a hidden needle trap on the door.  He disabled the trap and opened the door, into a short dead-end passage.  There were some manacles on the wall, covered in white fur.  Ioannes looked for another secret door in the obvious place on the far end of the passage, found it, and Vael figured out how to open it.

This led into some worked passages.  There was a heavy stone door to the south, and a widening passage with pillars to the west.  They listened to the door and tried opening it, but it was locked, so they went west.  The passage to the west opened into an upper level of a huge room, with a bridge crossing it from east to west, and a drop farther than their Continual Light rocks could see.  The bridge was lined with statues of ibises, and as they approached, the statues animated and flew at them.  Vallium killed two of the ibis gargoyles, and the others changed their mind about fighting and flew away.

Working south around the huge room, there was a larger ibis statue facing north into the room, and it was possible to step inside the statue from behind.  Ioannes did so, and saw that he could look through the statue's eyes, and see a magically lit and enhanced view of the whole room in front of and below him.  They left the statue and continued around the perimeter of the huge room, to a door to the west.

In the western room where three living mosaics on the floor, showing the Great Hall of the Halls of Thoth level with a beastman patrol walking through it, a stone platform in the middle of a large cavern surrounded by many mushrooms, and an interesting-shaped room with many pillars and a red dot at one end.  They decided that was the room with the Ruby Chair, north of the Well of Light.

They continued south through an archway, then found a room with two odd magical leather helmets with yellow lenses over the eyes.  Both lenses on one helmet were intact; both lenses on the other were broken.  They took both.

They went southwest and found a looted barracks full of junk and corpses.  As they entered, some spooky undead creatures emerged from the corpses and came at them.  As Vallium started fighting, Vael cast a powerful Wall of Lightning (using his power item for extra mana) and managed to catch all the undead in it.  This was very effective, and all of them were destroyed.  In the room were several suits of archaic scale armor, a few gems, and an ivory token labeled "Overseer of Truth" in Mithric.  They took the gems and token and as much of the armor as would fit in Larel's Sack.  (They tried the Rug again, just in case the problem had fixed itself, but it had not.)

To the south, they found a room with a Mithric sign saying "Danger."  Hanging from a rope in the middle of the room was a single leather boot.  They avoided that room and headed east to a heavy stone door, which they could not open.  Vael decided to use Shape Earth to wreck the door, and it failed -- the door was somehow shielded.  With no more obvious exits, they decided to use another charge from the See Secrets Wand.  Vael ran around looking for secret doors, and found one to the west.  It was difficult to open, so he used Lockmaster, which worked.

The room beyond had a spiral staircase running up.  They were excited to possibly find another exit to the surface.  The stairs led up around 250', to a basement room with a couple of doors on the north and east walls, in what they decided was probably the Tower of Scrutiny.  Not wanting to fight any wraiths, they immediately went down the stairs.

Heading back east to the door they could not open, there was another spiral staircase, this one heading down.  They were less excited about this one, but took it down about 100'.  This led to a room with a passage heading out to the east.  Not wanting to get distracted, they went back up.

With all other routes exhausted, they went back east to the first locked door they had found.  Vael used Lockmaster and managed to defeat a magical lock.  This led to a very interesting room.  It contained what looked like a table with a linen cloth covering it, a statue of a baboon, some manacles on a wall, a work table with a bunch of alchemy supplies and potions and some random other magical stuff, a large magical wooden frame with Thothian decorations mounted to the southwest wall, a smokeless magical fire burning in the center of the room, and a magic sink along the north wall.  There was a screen separating the northwest part of the room; behind the screen were a bed and a chest.

They methodically worked their way around the room searching each thing.  Under the linen cloth was a chessboard, with the squares black and white rather than the traditional Archontean purple and orange, with a pyramidal glass cover over it.  On the board were six black pieces, some piles of dust, and one oddly colored non-standard piece that looked like a little man with copper-colored skin, wearing robes covered with eyes, and carrying a twisted staff.  The little chess-piece-sized man was looking up at them and gesturing upward with his staff and free hand.  They looked at each other, and put the linen cloth back over the chessboard.

The baboon statue looked Thothian but not very interesting; it didn't have gems for eyes or arms on pinions and did not appear magical.  The manacles contained some white fur, like the ones in the secret corridor outside.  The work table had a bunch of interesting stuff: potions, scrolls, a notebook with some spells, a padded bag with a complete set of 6 glass activation squares, a decent alchemy lab, and a book titled (in Mithric) "Kel Bormol's Chess Diary."  The chest contained a bunch of clothes that seemed like they would fit a human man, along with some gold coins and a small box with 6 black opals.

Vallium said something about doors with Thothian symbols possibly being teleporters, and Vael cast Seek Gate which revealed that the frame was indeed a teleporter.  It was currently disabled though, which Vallium confirmed by stepping through it and walking into the wall behind it.  Vael spent several hours repeatedly casting Analyze Magic until he got the command word for the teleporter -- "noobab."

Meanwhile Iaonnes and Vallium used the alchemy lab to try to identify the potions, and were pretty sure what about five of the seven were.  They also flipped through the chess diary.  Most of it appeared to be records of chess games from about 1100 years ago, in Mithric.  The last few pages appeared to be records of some kinds of experiments, in Archontean, in different handwriting.

After Vael was done finding the command word, he needed to rest to recover from the repeated spellcasting, and Ioannes helped with Lend Energy.  Once everyone was recovered, they decided to activate the teleporter and step through.

It led into a small closet-sized room, with stone walls and a very secure-looking metal door, with a large sliding peephole, currently open.  There was an empty frame like the one they'd just walked through on the back wall, looking inactive.  A human guard on the other side of the door saw them appear in the room and started yelling, and someone ran off.  Several guards with scimitars started taking position on the other side of the door, along with some large albino baboons with collars and spears.

Vael started casting Great Haste on Vallium, but when the guards made no move to open the door, he aborted it and started casting Lockmaster.  Meanwhile Ioannes used the same command word to activate the teleporter on this side, and Vallium held his shield over the peephole to keep the guards from seeing what they were doing.  Once Vael finished Lockmaster, the door clicked unlocked, but he said "wait for Great Haste."  He then cast Great Haste on Vallium while the guards held position.

Once the Great Haste took effect, Vallium threw the door open and started stabbing guards.  There were three human guards in the room, unarmored and wielding scimitars.  There were also three of the trained baboons, with spears.  Vallium managed to kill one of the guards.  Another dropped his weapon.  The third parried all of Vallium's blows.  Vallium managed to dodge, block, or parry several scimitar cuts from the guards, as well as several spear thrusts from the baboons.  Vael cast Blur on Vallium to make him harder to hit, as Ioannes stood defensively with his shield up, ready to heal anyone who needed it.

We ran out of time at that point, pausing in mid-battle.

Battle in the Tower of the Ape

GM's Comments:

It's sometimes hard for me to predict when the players will be cautious and when they will be brave.  I was a bit surprised they went after the Thane with only 3 PCs.  I was also surprised they went through the teleporter with only a few minutes left in the session.  (They knew Uvash would not be available next week either, which factored into that decision.)

This was a very good session for exploration, with a whole lot of a new level explored, a new exit to the Cliff Face found, and a couple of new stairways discovered.  They also found some treasure, though haven't identified much of it so they don't really know how good it is.  Except that after spending months collecting a full set of 6 teleportation tiles, they just found a full second set all together in one place.

XP: 

They stopped in mid-delve, so no XP was awarded.  Anything they did this session will be added to next session.

Next Week:

Since we stopped in mid-battle, I know exactly what they'll be doing at the start of next week's session: continuing to fight trained baboons and Disciplined guards with scimitars.  After that it depends on how that fight goes.  Guessing they press on as long as things go well, and try to dive back through that teleporter if they go poorly.

Solving the mystery of why the Rugs of Instant Access stopped working will certainly be a high priority next session, if the PCs make it back to Gosterwick.