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.