DFRPG Arden Vul Session 39: Diving for the Yellow Card

Date: 

Lunday, 19th of Fidios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Frigid, party cloudy, snowy

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)

Thrainor "Thronebreaker" Ironvein, Dwarven mercenary fighter (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Roger the Rapier, leader of the Five Fingers of Destiny adventuring company

Wicktrimmer, Imperial goblin merchant

Tresti Iredell, half-elven mage

Craastonistex, green dragon

Two wyverns, pets of Craastonistex

Many goblins

Bottleneck, goblin sergeant running Upper Goblintown

Killik, goblin sub-chief of the Wet Caves

Several slow-moving constructs

Several varumani lift operators

Several monkey-like animals

Large mimic, disguised as a statue

Two high-tech automated projectile-firing turrets

Rudishva floor-cleaning automaton

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Stamelis, enchanted bust of an ancient Thothian priest

The Plan:

• Use a Clairvoyance potion to spy on Craastonistex's tower
• Follow Temrin's map 
• Across the Sundered Span
• Down the Varumani Lifts
• Down some stairs on the side of the Great Chasm
• North across a lake on the floor of the Great Chasm
• West through the wall on the side of the Great Chasm
• Through some rooms to the Yellow Rudishva Identity Plaque
• Investigate west of the Well of Light

What Happened:

Vallium, Vael, and Uvash went looking for Roger the Rapier.  They found him in the Stunned Acolyte, the nicest inn in Gosterwick.  They agreed to his earlier proposal: if he showed them how he had found the treasury of Thoth, they would give him an ankh key.  Roger tried to just tell them, but Vallium insisted that he actually meet them in Arden Vul and demonstrate.  Roger said it was too cold to travel to Arden Vul today, but he and the Five Fingers would meet them in the Glory of Weskenim at noon in one week, on the 26th of Fidios.

Returning to the Arcane Practitioners' Club, they ran into Tresti, the mage now working for Wicktrimmer at the Rarities Factor.  She said she'd heard the new apartments were ready and she thought she was supposed to get one, but somehow they had managed to cut in line ahead of her and take all four.  She tried to get them to sublease one of the apartments to her in exchange for some utility spellcasting, but Vael said he could already make Continual Light stones and cast Analyze Magic on any items they found.  She then mentioned that she was usually home and could keep an eye on the area and use the Message spell to alert them if she detected any more intruders.  That sounded valuable, and the Right for Riches company agreed to let her sublease one of the four apartments.  She then told them that Wicktrimmer wanted to test his new magic item, Thoth's Palanquin, in the cold and snow, and wanted her to come along, so she wondered anyone had a Ring of Warmth she could borrow.  None of them did.

They picked up Thronebreaker, the door-busting dwarf mercenary, at the Grudge Brigade headquarters, then went through a Teleport Rug to the Beacon.  Vael then blinked Vallium and himself through the roof over the stairs, and after they were sure nobody was watching, they dropped a Rug so the others could join them.  They went south and west to the dam and left some token monetary tribute on the roof, along with a note that they were having a chess board crafted but it wasn't ready yet.  Vael then Blinked inside the dam, and while there drank a Clairvoyance potion and started magically spying on Craas's tower in the southwestern corner of the ruins.  He saw a closed trap door in the roof, a wyvern trying to throw copper coins at chess pieces on the top floor, a sleeping wyvern on the middle floor, a couple of heavy doors on the first floor, and a lot of chests plus the head of a statue of a sorcerer in the cellar.  He did not spot the dragon.

Vael Blinked back out of the dam, then they all walked east then north to the Pyramid of Thoth.  Once they got inside out of the wind it was a bit less frigid and Vael told the others about the tower.  Then ran into a goblin patrol on the stairs, then spoke to Bottleneck in Upper Goblintown.  Bottleneck said things had been pretty quiet lately, with no incursions by Settites or undead.  He reminded them to keep closing doors behind them.  They went south to the Wet Caves, where Killik warned them to move quickly toward the Sundered Span.  They hustled to the east as some slow constructs tried to catch them but failed, then turned around.  They crossed the bridge (including the plank in the middle where the actual stone bridge had been broken) and reached the top of the Varumani Lifts.

The Varumani operator there quoted them a much higher price than previously.  After some diplomatic questioning from Vael, this turned out to be a new first time rider surcharge, as he did not realize they had previously used the Lifts.  He lowered the price to the usual 10 silver pieces per leg, or 20 per person since they each had two legs.  They paid, climbed into the Lift, and were lowered to the Arena level.  The operator there said the Inn was to the north, the Arena was to the northeast, and indicated that if they wanted to continue down to the Varumani level they'd need to take the cross-chasm ferry to the garden island floating in the center of the chasm, walk across the island, continue on the other cross-chasm ferry, then go down on the far side.  They agreed.  The operator then said the cross-chasm ferry only carried four people, so they needed to split into two groups.  Vael said he'd just fly, and the operator seemed skeptical and said that if he hung off the ferry or its cable, he had to pay.  Vael Levitated to the island as the others took the ferry.

The island was a garden of various tropical plants (not normally found this far north), lit by some very bright (but non-magical) globes overhead.  There was a hill in the middle.  The group spent some time walking around looking at the plants, and Vael flew up to look at the light globes.  There was a pool of green water on top of the hill.  Nobody drank any, but they took a sample to look at later.  Vael stopped to cast Seek Earth for gold and platinum and Seek Magic.  He detected gold and magic inside the hill, and platinum back near the varumani lift operators.  They decided not to poke around too much with the varumani watching, and took the next leg of the ferry over to the west side of the Chasm.

On the west side was another Lift operation, with a Lift going down to the varumani level, a giant stone chair, and a gate behind the chair.  The operator here appeared to be in charge of the Lifts, as he had a gold baton of office.  He indicated that behind the gate were scary ice monsters, and didn't recommend going that way.  He said that if they insisted on going back there, he would charge them to open the gate, and suggested also giving him the rest of their money for safekeeping, since they probably wouldn't need it anymore.  Vallium asked about varumani passports, and the operator said they were needed to enter actual varumani territory, but anyone could ride the Lifts as long as they folllowed the rules.  They decided to just take the Lift down.

The next level down had the landing spot for the Lift, but no actual machinery.  It was the end of this line.  There were several ogre guards keeping anyone without a passport from going into varumani territory to the west.  The varumani in charge said they were free to ride the Lift back up, or take the stairs down the side of the Chasm, but could not pass west without a passport.  Vael asked about the process for getting a passport, but the varumani was not very helpful and said they might not be giving out any more.  He said he would ask the thegn next time he saw him.

Vallium led the group down the stairs.  A bit down, Vael spotted some handholds along the wall.  He flew up to investigate, found a hidden door at the top of the handholds, and went past it to find a dead-end passage.  He thought the dead-end passage probably led into varumani territory, so decided not to explore farther.  He came back down and the group resumed going down many stairs.

Eventually, the stairs switchbacked away from the chasm wall to the east then back west, as shown on Temrin's map.  They found a statue of Wadjet where the map indicated there would be one.  It was magical, so Vael analyzed it and found that it could provide protection.  Ioannes beseeched Wadjet for protection and the statue cast a protection spell on the group.  They headed north to some sticky mud flats, then northeast through some mushroom groves, which appeared too regular to be wild.  The mushroom groves ended to the north at more mud.  Seeing the mud would be no fun to traverse, and they needed to cross a lake afterward, three members of the group went back through the Rug, and Vael cast Walk on Air on Vallium so the two could fly above the mud flats then above the lake.  There was a large pillar in the center of the lake, and they went around it to the left.

On the north shore of the lake, they found a stone causeway.  Following their map, they went west, to a plateau covered in trash.  They laid out the Rug and Vael stepped through to get the others.  Everyone searched the plateau, then Vael cast Seek Magic, and found a magic statue buried in the trash.  Digging it out revealed a statue of Chibalba, the ancient Lord of the Deeps.  Analyzing the statue revealed summoning magic, but nobody wanted to try it.  They moved west against the wall and started looking for secret doors.  Vael used Shape Earth to start moving stone away from the wall, making it into a couple of statues.

While resting from spellcasting, they were rudely awakened by several monkey-like creatures, making a lot of noise.  Ioannes tried Gift of Voices but they were animals, not speaking an actual language, so it failed.  One of the monkeys started going for their bags, and Vael decided that was enough and cast Thunderclap.  That scattered the monkeys.

Another Shape Earth revealed a cave to the west.  Vallium went in and found a fallen statue of a human warrior.  Everyone else came in and started searching for secret doors.  Vael found one on the west wall, but not how to open it.  Giving up, he tried a Lockmaster spell, and then all hell broke loose.

The fallen statue turned out to actually be a mimic, which tried to sneak up behind Ioannes and pummel him.  Fortunately Ioannes saw it coming and blocked the blow.  Vallium and Thronebreaker both smashed the mimic, but then secret doors in the north and south walls opened and some kind of technological projectile weapons emerged.  One of them malfunctioned and then spun in place with nothing coming out.  The other one destroyed the mimic, then shot tiny projectiles at Vael, who Blinked out of the way, and at Vallium, whose Amulet of Missile Shield seemed to cause all of them to miss.

Vallium smashed the working sentry machine, while it kept trying to shoot him, and kept missing.  (His friends were fortunate that none of the missed shots accidentally hit them.)  Vael turned Invisible.  Uvash powered up his Heroic Grace.  But before anyone else could help, Vallium hit the turret enough times that it stopped moving and shooting.

Vallium then went north to the malfunctioning turret, and pulled it out of its alcove into the middle of the room.  It kept pointing its barrels at him and making noises, but nothing came out.  Vael used Shape Earth to build a stone box around the turret, as they discussed how to capture it.  But eventually something inside the stone box started working again, and the box started to break as it absorbed many projectiles.  Vallium decided that was enough playing and went to smash the turret, while the others hid around the corner.  It got a few shots off before he broke it, but again his Amulet prevented any hits.

With both turrets and the mimic defeated, they went back to the western secret door, which Vallium's Lockmaster spell had failed to open.  Thronebreaker got out his portable battering ram, asked the others to grab handles and help, and powered up a Power Blow.  He unleashed the kind of damage that would vaporize most doors, but this door was so strong that it only poked a small hole.  Vael saw that the hole was enough to look through, and used a Continual Light stone to see the an unoccupied Rudishva room on the far side.  He used Blink Other to send Vallium across, and then the others used the Rug to follow.

The room contained some kind of technological machine on a desk to the south, with a large chair in front of it.  To the north was a closed iris door.  Following Temrin's map, they ignored everything and went west.  As they did, a small round automaton came down the hall toward them.  It beeped as it approached them.  They let it go and it continued to the door and started cleaning up the mess that Thronebreaker's ram had left on the floor.  Deciding the cleaning device was not a threat, they continued west.

To the south was a room with a large table and six corpses: two Rudishva behind the table, two six-armed creatures near the north entrance, and two amphibian bipeds near the east entrance.  Ioannes looked at the bodies and it appeared all six had severe burn damage, with the two amphibians being more charred than the others.  They searched the bodies.  The Rudishva had several oval identity plaques between them: platinum, silver, sky blue, and the yellow card they had come for.  One also had a rectangular black card.  They also had a couple of long technological artifacts that appeared melted, and a satchel containing two large flasks of unknown liquid.  The other corpses weren't carrying anything.

Vallium investigated to the east, and found a small room with three niches.  Two of them had silver discs on the floor and silver square panels on the wall, and the third was behind some kind of force wall.  Vallium walked in to look closer, then jumped back as a fire trap went off and engulfed him in flame.  He survived without too much damage thanks to his armor, and Ioannes healed him.  Vallium asked to borrow the fire resistance amulet from Ioannes, and went back into the trap.  The amulet was effective and prevented any damage.  Vallium investigated and found that the yellow card dismissed the force field, and behind it was another silver disc on the floor and a yellow square on the wall.  Nobody actually tried any of the discs, as they feared they were teleporters to unknown places.  A minute after Vallium stepped out, the force field reappeared.

Deciding to stop exploring for the day, they dropped a Rug and everyone except Vallium went back to the Beacon.  Vallium then took the Rug into the niche behind the force field where it was less likely to be disturbed, and teleported back.  A few minutes later, Vael went back through the Rug to use a scroll of Mystic Mist for good measure: anyone who got near their Rug would have to deal with fear and confusion.

GM's Comments:

We had a tech failure, with Foundry VTT working fine for the GM but crashing hard when the players joined.  So, after some debugging failed, we played this whole session Theater of the Mind.  Went fine, though I think the players would have preferred a battlemap for the fight.  (After the session, we debugged more and figured out that the Antigravity browser extension seems to crash Foundry.  So if the player who just installed that extension disables it before joining, we should be fine.)

I think the battle with the mimic and the sentry guns was the first three-sided fight of this campaign.  The mimic's plan was to stay still until everyone turned their back, then attack with surprise.  The sentry guns were programmed to stay hidden until someone tried to bash down or magically open a secret door, then shoot them.  It turned out both events happened at the same time, so rather than two distinct battles we got one big mess.

Those sentry guns were quite lethal and I thought it was likely that several PCs could die before Vallium (whose Missile Shield amulet meant he was basically immune to them) finished them off.  So the north sentry gun's critical failure was possibly the luckiest thing that happened to the PCs in this campaign so far.  It rolled an 18 to critically miss, then a 15 on the critical miss table, which is "you strain your shoulder and can't use your weapon arm for 30 minutes."  Sentry guns don't have shoulders, but I ruled this meant it malfunctioned and could not attack for 30 minutes, then would self-repair.  This meant the Vallium only had to fight one working sentry gun rather than two.  Its crucial first round of attacks was targeted randomly and I rolled Vallium, Vael, and the mimic.  After that Vallium was the only one right next to it attacking it, so I ruled a 5 in 6 chance for each attack to shoot Vallium, until the sentry gun figured out that he was un-hittable.  And Vallium smashed it before it figured that out.  Every (automatic) miss still had a chance to hit someone behind Vallium, but I didn't roll low enough for any accidental hits.  They spent a bit too long playing with the other sentry gun, but after it repaired itself and started shooting through the stone box they had built around it, Vallium decided to stop messing around and finished it off.

Thronebreaker vs. the Rudishva Security Door was one of those unstoppable force vs. immovable object problems.  I ruled he needed to do 100 HP to poke a small hole all the way through, and he did.  I don't think they could have actually opened the door without Thronebreaker, so they probably chose the right mercenary this week.

The fire trap was also pretty nasty, but Vallium went first and he has a lot of armor and made his Perception check to sense the hidden trap in time to Dodge, then his Dodge roll, so he wasn't hurt too badly.  And Ioannes has an Salamander Amulet that protects from fire damage, so once they knew it was a fire trap, they could deal with it.

This was a pretty light session in terms of combat (just the one fight) and loot (several Rudishva identity plaques, a few flasks of mystery liquids, and not much else), but they accomplished their goals of scouting the dragon tower and finding the yellow identity plaque, so it was a successful delve.

Achievements:

Iconic Location: Great Cavern at the bottom of the Great Chasm, 1 XP

XP:

• Exploration: 18 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: not much, 0 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 2 XP

Next Week:

They left a Rug in the Rudishva Bastion, so they're planning on going right back.  In fact, they've decided not to take their usual week of downtime, and will go back the next day, since they have a meeting with Roger the Rapier in a week.  If they finish exploring the Bastion, they next plan to explore the Rudishva teleporters, then open any iris doors they have previously been unable to open.  If they exhaust all of those, they would next explore more of the base of the Great Chasm.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 38: Another Attack on the Temple of Set

 

Date: 

Basilsday, 11th of Fidios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Cold, snowing

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)

Merenuithiel "Lacrymosa" Armaris, Elven mercenary archer (Archon Shiva) 

Significant NPCs:

Wicktrimmer, Imperial goblin merchant

Tresti Iredell, half-elven mage

Jaken, spirit of an ancient warrior

Tuftwillig, sentient ancient oak tree

Bottleneck, goblin sergeant running Upper Goblintown

Many goblins

Many Set guards

Many Set cultists

Several Set acolytes, deacons, and priests

Rolf, enslaved Set prisoner and would-be human sacrifice

Wild boar

Otyugh

The Plan:

• Try to talk to the spirit in the magical burned bones
• Use the scroll of Plant Speech to talk to the ancient oak tree in the Forum of Arden Vul
• Go down through the Pyramid of Thoth, west through the catacombs, and up the rope ladder
• Attack the Temple of Set from the north
• Explore the hole behind the Settite jail
• Explore the western end of the Well of Light level

What Happened:

Renovation of the apartments on the top floor of the Arcane Practitioners' Club was finished.  The Right for Riches company had secured two-year leases on four new luxury apartments, which doubled their previous cost of living.

Wicktrimmer asked for a meeting.  He once again tried to buy a pair of their Teleport Rugs.  After that failed, he asked their opinion of Tresti Iredell, a mage the Rarities Factor was considering hiring.  He then shared information about the thief who had blown himself up in their apartment: the Drome had found that his name was Jarnno the False, and he was apparently a freelance non-guild-affiliated thief from Newmarket.  

Everyone wanted to try talking to the magic bones.  Thinking it might be a good idea to do so in a sanctified place, Ioannes first suggested the Temple of Demma, but didn't want to get in trouble in case talking to dead people was bad, so they decided to use the public House of the Gods instead.  The bones answered, in audible Mithric.  The bones belonged to an ancient warrior named Jaken, who was a companion of Arden and Vul, about 2000 years ago.  He had questions about the future, like whether spears were still the best weapons and whether everyone moved around on flying carpets.  The Right for Riches Company had a few questions about Jaken and the past, then Jaken's spirit said he needed to rest and stopped responding.

They went through a Teleport Rug to the Beacon, then Vael used Blink Other to move Vallium to the surface, then everyone else came through a Rug to join Vallium.  There were no enemies in sight, but it was snowing and nobody wanted to leave an obvious trail from the Beacon, so Vael Levitated and followed behind the group using a Whirlwind spell to disrupt their tracks.

When they reached the Forum, Ioannes used the clerical scroll of Beast Speech (an unusual item, as it's usually a Druidic spell) on Vael, to let him talk to the big oak tree.  The tree actually responded.  It said its name was Tuftwillig.  They discovered a common dislike for Craastonistorex the green dragon and for the undead in the Tower of Scrutiny.  Tuftwillig said, being a tree, he wasn't personally so good at moving or fighting, but might be able to summon some animals to help fight the dragon.  Vael asked if Tuftwillig knew any rocs, and Tuftwillig said that rocks were minerals, not animals, but he might be able to call some bears and crocodiles, though he didn't really trust crocodiles.  Tuftwillig also complained that the Tower of Scrutiny was ugly and blocked his view of the sunrise and should be knocked down, after all the undead inside were destroyed.

After the spell expired, they went north to the Pyramid of Thoth, manipulated the statue arms to open the stairs down, and reached Upper Goblintown.  After being allowed in, they spoke briefly to Bottleneck, who said the Settites hadn't been back for a week.  Vallium led the group northwest to Maat's room, where everyone grabbed another magic feather.  They then went west to the portcullis room, where Vael pulled a lever to open the northern portcullis.  Not wanting to let anything out, Vallium used an Elven Rope to pull the lever from the far side of the portcullis, shutting it behind them.  They went west until they found the trap door in the ceiling, pulled the rope ladder down, and climbed up into the cave with the "Stilicho was here" graffitti.

They headed west across the cave, until they saw a line of Settite guards with bows to their south, below a 20' high cliff.  An archery duel began, mostly featuring Lacrymosa shooting Settite archers in the arms and Settite archers saying "ow!" and dropping their bows.  Meanwhile Vallium lowered himself as far as he could down the cliff, then let go and let his armor absorb the fall, then charged the Settites with his sword.  Uvash followed Vallium down the cliff, climbing more carefully.  Vael cast Missle Shield on Lacrymosa just in case one of the Settites got a lucky hit before losing an arm, but it turned out not to be necessary.  One Settite guard fled east, and the rest died.

The others scrambled down the cliff, and then everyone ran south, where there was a 10' cliff leading to the Signing Stair between the Temple of Set above and the Forum of Set below.  Vallium and Lacrymosa just jumped down the cliff, relying on armor and acrobatics respectively.  They saw the double doors to the the Temple were closed, and lined up ready to attack anyone who opened them.  One of the doors eventually opened, and guards and cultists started pouring out.  Vallium and later Uvash got in a melee with many cultists and guards, while Lacrymosa stood back, peppering them with arrows and occasionally throwing a flash nageteppo to blind them.  Behind the wall of guards and cultists, some other Settites fled.

By the time the fight was over, there were a couple dozen dead Settites scattered about.  Entering the temple, they spotted a sacrificial victim chained to the altar, bleeding but still alive.  All the Settites were gone.  After some conversation revealed that the victim was indeed a victim not a Settite, they freed him and eventually Ioannes took him via Rug teleport to the Temple of Demma in Gosterwick.  Meanwhile Vallium and Lacrymosa attempted to track the fled Settites.  They found a trail leading south through a secret door, then two groups went south and west, and eventually they lost the trail.  They rejoined the others, who were busy looting guards of their armor and weapons and breaking things.  Vael used Shape Earth to topple the giant cult statue (which Ioannes and Uvash had previously looted of its gem eyes) forward onto the altar, causing major damage to both.

Vallium tried to grab the jeweled serpent construct in one of the alcoves, but it animated and tried to bite him.  Deciding his armor was probably thick enough to stop snakebites, he wrestled the snake until he had its head grappled so it could no longer bite him, then took it through a Teleport Rug to the Beacon, and left it in an empty side room behind an iris door where it couldn't bite anybody.

Once the group was done looting weapons and armor and trashing Settite religious objects, they decided to start stealing furniture.  They took two tables and four chairs from a couple of guard rooms, and later took some beds from a room to the south.  They took the furniture through the Rug to the entrance room of the Beacon, where Basil could figure out where to put it all.  On the way out, Vael also used a Lightning spell to kill a wild boar that the Settites had chained up for some unknown reason.

Vallium led the group south to a hole in the floor that they had never explored.  He threw a Continual Light rock in, which revealed a pile of bones.  He jumped in, again trusting his armor to prevent falling damage.  An otyugh that was hiding behind the bones tried to ambush him, but flubbed its stealth attempt and failed to achieve any surprise.  The fight was over very quickly: Vallium stabbed the otyugh several times and it died before Lacrymosa standing in the room above found a clear shot.  Vallium started sifting through the bones, and found a couple of diamonds.  Vael flew down to help search, but didn't find anything else.

The group again tried to find where the Settites had fled.  They found an additional secret door further west, leading to the stairs down to the Forum, and concluded that the remaining Settites had probably run around them while they were fighting or exploring or looting or breaking stuff.  They went to the Settite jail in the southwest, then through the secret door behind a cell, and again visited the area with Rudishva architecture and the Rudishva-style mural with all the faces burned out.  They searched for secret doors again, and Lacrymosa noted a small door on the wall that was different from everything else.  They pushed on it, which popped a secret door open to the west.

Going through the secret door, they spotted a charred corpse in orange robes, a metal chest, and some kind of magical floating disk with a stone slab on it.  Ioannes walked over to check out the corpse, and got shocked by some kind of invisible trap.  Badly wounded, he avoided passing out, and jumped back.  Uvash healed him immediately.  Vael started looking for the trap, and could not find exactly where it was.  He used the Rug to go back to the Beacon and talked to Akla-Chah, who said she wasn't an engineer but explained the basics of electricity and lightning rods, then said she was available if Ioannes needed any therapy after his traumatic injury.  Vael gathered a bunch of Settite maces and tried to build a lightning rod, but didn't figure out how to make it work.  Then Uvash announced the he could cast Resist Lightning, grabbed the Rug, and carried it across the trap.  The shock didn't hurt him, and the others teleported across through the Rugs.

The charred corpse had orange Thothian robes, a few silver coins, and a magical eye.  The chest was empty, but surprisingly light.  The floating disk was about 6 feet in diameter, and the slab of stone on the disk weighed a couple of tons.  There was a picture on the slab of some kind of flying machine, with a ramp coming down to the ground, and Rudishva and Varumani and a bird-creature and a snake-creature on the ramp.  There were also some Rudishva glyphs.

Vael sat down to cast Analyze Magic on the disk, and found that it was a ground-level Levitation device that could be guided with a few Mithric command words.  Some experimentation showed that he could make it stop or go or turn, but not follow him, and not move vertically.  They explored down the dead end tunnel to the east then south, and found a secret door, which led to the passage leading back to the Settite outpost in the Great Cavern.  They then drove the Disk with the stone slab on top through the Great Cavern, down the Long Stair, and back to Gosterwick.  (Ioannes, still not feeling great after his electrical shock, opted out of this trip and instead teleported back to the Beacon.)

GM's Comments:

That was a big fight.  Battles where I'm running dozens of enemies are hard.

Achievements:

1 XP for saving Rolf from being sacrificed and getting him to a safe place.

XP:

• Exploration: 2 new locations, 0 XP
• Loot: weapons and armor, gems, the magic Disk and the stone slab.  Looks like 1-2 XP, depending on what they decide to sell.
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: looks like 2-3 XP

Next Week:

I haven't seen a formal plan yet, but there was some discussion of following Temrin's map to the gold Rudishva identity plaque.  There was also talk of continuing to hammer the Settites, or maybe even going after Craas.  We'll see.

Escalating Cost of Living for PCs in Dungeon Fantasy RPG

In the full GURPS rules, your Cost of Living scales with Tech Level and Status.  Dungeon Fantasy RPG doesn't really have Tech Level (it's all Tech Level: Olden Days a.k.a. Tech Level 3 plus whatever your GM thinks is cool).  It doesn't really have Status either.  (Obviously the king has higher status than a commoner, but it's all abstract, not a stat on your sheet.)  So does a PC's Cost of Living stay $150/week forever?

Well, it can if they really want it to.  The Miserliness [-10] disadvantage is available, if you want to play Warren Buffet, a multibillionaire who still lives in a regular house in Omaha and drives an Oldsmobuick.  Most rich people want to spend at least some of that money on fun stuff though.  So in addition to the useful things like magic armor and healing potions, it's reasonable to spend money on comfort items like a house or a horse or a servant.  Or security items like banks and guards.

In DFRPG Arden Vul, the town of Gosterwick has two full-service inns, the middle-class Yellow Cloak Inn and the fancy Stunned Acolyte Inn.  I ruled that the standard PC Cost of Living gets you a shared room (two or three PCs to a room) at the Yellow Cloak Inn and three meals per day in the common dining room.  If you want to eat most of your meals in the upper class dining room, or have a single room or a suite, cost of living goes up.  If you want to stay at the Stunned Acolyte, it goes up more.  If you want the Archon's Suite at the Stunned Acolyte, you can spend a ton.

There's another inn within the ruins of Arden Vul itself, the Inn of the Broken Head.  It's not as nice as the Yellow Cloak, let alone the Stunned Acolyte, but its location makes everything more expensive.  (All the supplies need to be brought up the Long Stair via mule train, with the teamsters paid hazard pay because of the dragon in the area.)  So if a PC wanted to live there full time, they'd pay full cost of living to sleep in a shared bunkroom with strangers, or double for a private room (if one were even available).

Ioannes got himself in trouble with the Yellow Cloak Inn for a critical failure making Continual Light stones, that ended up accidentally casting Continual Darkness on his bedding and freaking out a maid.  So he and Vael decided to move to an apartment at the Arcane Practitioners Club, which explicitly allows spellcasting.  And later, the other PCs decided to join them there.  This initially only cost the regular cost of living, plus the reasonable APC membership fee ($13 per week each).  However, at some point Lyssandra and Pelteon decided that having lower-class adventurer tenants was too annoying, as they did things like drag monster corpses through the hallways.  So they decided to renovate their eight small apartments into four double-sized luxury apartments and charge double the rent.  With only four apartments available, they planned to offer their four least annoying tenants (not the PCs) the first opportunity to lease one -- but Vael subverted that strategy by giving Lyssandra a valuable magic item in exchange for a two-year lease on all four apartments.  So now she's stuck with monster-corpse-hoarding assassin-attracting fireball-trap-owning tenants for a while longer, and has to keep putting up passive-aggressive signs about New Club Rules every time they do something she didn't think she needed to put in the rules before.  But they're paying double their previous cost of living.

In addition to increasing the cost of necessities, players can decide they have more things they want to buy.  At some point the PCs bought a mule to help haul things to and from Arden Vul.  I think they only actually used the mule two or three times, but it cost a couple thousand silver up front, and it costs $30 per week to board and feed at Sakeon's Horse Market.  Recently they hired an employee, Basil, to help take care of their secret base in the Beacon and the two unusual people (a holographic projection of an alien AI psychologist, and an animated statue head of a Thothian librarian) who live there.  Basil works pretty cheap, only $100 per week, but they also pay $75 per week for his room and board.  And another $100 per week to keep food stocked in the Beacon.  The burn rate keeps slowly rising.  And then there's the eccentric stuff, like Ioannes paying Fael the druid $100/week for a Beast Speech spell so he can not only talk to his cat (that's free), but get answers back.

Of course, even relatively rich PCs can't always afford everything they want.  Uvash wanted to build his own church of Zodarrim in Gosterwick, but the price was beyond his current level of funds, so that might have to wait a while.  Maybe if they defeat a dragon and take its hoard...

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 37: Deino and the Eyeballs

Date: 

Basilsday, 11th of Fidios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Warm, overcast

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:

Wicktrimmer, Imperial goblin merchant

Fael, half-elven druid

Onyx, cat genius

Avatar of Bastet, ancient goddess of cats

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Many goblins

Many beastmen

Count Skleros, beastman commander

Deino, wizard, mother of beastmen

Gog, exiled varumani

Several orge guards

Roger the Rapier, wizard and leader of the Five Fingers of Destiny

Weskenim, King of the United Goblin Tribes

Skimmel, Reeflik, Palestrim, and Gribble: King Weskenim's advisors

Gog, varumani exile

Fire elemental

8 zombies

Several wizards of some secret faction

Bumpko, giant 4-armed intelligent baboon

Many baboons

The Plan:

• Buy a lot of food
• Meet with Count Skleros
• Feed Gog
• Meet with King Weskenim and collect patches for retrieving the Scepter of the Goblins
• Try to get a new map from Temrin
• Explore both doors near the Pit of Fire
• Explore the hallway south of the Magic Fountain of Donkey Ears
• Investigate the Floating Head
• Say "The Font of Magic" to the Ruby Chair and see what happens
• Search the librarian's quarters, looking for the Secret Library of Thoth
• Explore west of the Well of Light

What Happened:

Wicktrimmer sent a note that he was back in Gosterwick and wanted to meet.  He inquired about Uvash's health and the burglary of their apartment.  The company told him about the second set of Teleport Rugs (which Wicktrimmer immediately tried to buy) and Tikun Thane and the Tower of the Ape.  Wicktrimmer said he'd see if any more information on the burglar was available.

It was the full moon, so the group hired Fael the druid because to cast Beast Speech, and she led them and Onyx the cat outside of town, where her magic worked better.  There they activated the Statuette of Feline Friendship.  A ghostly cat avatar appeared, and started speaking in the language of cats.  Fael translated.  They gave the avatar a gift of fish (which bothered Onyx because that was his fish) and then asked her three questions.  She said there was a hidden temple of Bastet deep under Arden Vul.  She said the people of Bastet would like to recover some of their treasures that had been lost when they had to flee underground during the civil war.  She had no idea where the Regalia were.  The avatar disappeared, and the group then had Fael translate as they talked to Onyx about the burglar, how he'd saved the other cats before the burglar touched the statue eyes and caused a giant fireball in the apartment, and how they don't give him enough of the correct kinds of fish on the appropriate days.

After returning to Gosterwick, they stepped through a Teleport Rug to the Beacon, then walked over to the Pyramid of Thoth.  Descending through the pyramid, they scared off some giant rats.  They briefly spoke to the goblins in Upper Goblintown, who were a bit skittish after a recent zombie attack, and told the party to please make sure all doors were closed and locked to keep undead out.  They went south to the border with beastman territory, and Vallium made noise until a beastman sentry appeared, then went to get Count Skleros for their meeting.

Skleros thanked them again for rescuing his troopers, then indicated that Mother had read the note from the dragon and wanted to meet with them.  He warned them to be on their best behavior and that it was probably safest to avoid eating or drinking anything.  The Count personally lead them through beastman territory, to a northern entrance where he indicated a wire they should avoid tripping over, and through a room full of elderly beastman guards into a yellow-painted room containing a Thothian teleportation circle.  He asked them to wait there while he went into talk to Mother, then slipped through a door.  He came back out a bit later and led them inside.  The large room contained an attractive woman in a yellow dress with various magical accessories, many goats and dogs and rats and pigs and sheep, a few mostly naked men, several magical torches along the walls, and a line of magical braziers with pots boiling over each.  Deino greeted everybody and asked for individual introductions.  She then asked what they could do about that horrible dragon that kept eating her children.  The party asked for her help against the dragon, and Deino was mostly non-committal and said that she could not go outside, but eventually conferred with Count Skleros then indicated that they could send a tagma of troopers along for the battle.  Everyone declined Deino's offer of food and drink.  She asked about cloud cap mushrooms, and Vael said they knew of a possible source and might be able to facilitate trade.  When Deino was done asking questions, she had the Count escort the visitors back out.  Skleros told them they had done well in their meeting.

Everyone then went downstairs to Goblintown to meet with King Weskenim.  In the waiting area outside his chamber they saw Roger the Rapier and the rest of the Five Fingers of Destiny.  Vallium pointed out there were actually six of them.  Roger asked for a meeting off to the side where they would not be overheard.  He congratulated the Right for Riches company on finding the Scepter of the Goblins before him, and said that he was looking for a particular type of key to solve a puzzle and wondered if they had any.  He pulled out an ankh-key, like the ones they had used in the obelisks to open the doors to the Beacon.  The group played dumb and said they didn't have any keys like that.  Vallium pulled out his key ring and showed a collection of about 30 other keys, none of them ankhs.

The king's major-domo Pelestrim came out to fetch the group for their audience.  The king told them that today was a good day to show the Scepter to his people, so he was going to take them all to the balcony overlooking the Goblin Great Hall, pin on their Scepter Finder patches, wave the Scepter at the crowd, and say a few words.  Their job was to look heroic and not say anything.  The ceremony went quickly, the goblins cheered, and King Weskenim went back to his room.  Unable to avoid getting a word in, Vael asked if they could get exclusive access to the Royal Artist Temrin, which made the king laugh.  He did let Ioannes pet his new kitten though.

The group went back upstairs via Gog's cave, and gave Gog some food on the way.  Gog was grateful for the food and shared news that a few other adventurers had been through: the Five Fingers, Dalton's group, Hama and Company, and some sketchy people who didn't tell him their names.  When they reached Upper Goblintown, they tried the command words they had recently found for the floating head.  The head woke up.  Vael told the head to follow him in Mithric, and the head obeyed.  A goblin saw this and ran to tell Bottleneck that King Wesky II was awake.  Bottleneck then sent for one of the king's witch doctors to come up and deal with the floating head.  The witch doctor started leading the head down to the king, but Vael wanted to tag along to see where they put it.  They also heard that the king had another similar floating head, King Wesky I.

They went upstairs again, took a roundabout path around the northern part of the Halls of Thoth, crossed the Great Chasm at the bridge, and reached the Pool of Fire.  There Ioannes again said "Thoth Rules."  This cleared a path through the fire to the golden key.  As he stepped in, the fire creature in the pit telepathically asked if Ioannes wanted to be transported.  Ioannes said no, brought the key to the secret door on the south wall, and unlocked it.

They walked past the broken constructs and the mosaic knots on the floor to two doors.  They took the northern door, which led to stairs up.  They went up around 250' and reached a dead-end room.  Some searching found a secret door into a large cellar full of trash and zombies.  Vallium and Uvash killed the zombies while Ioannes and Vael stood back and watched.  When the zombies were dead they investigated the room, finding a broken staircase, a coat of arms on one wall, and an exit south.  The room to the south contained several newer empty crates, some labeled with the logos of various food merchants.  There was also a trap door on the ceiling.  Vael cast Seek Earth for platinum, gold, and silver.  He followed it up with Seek Magic.  All three metals were to be found southwest, in the direction of the Pyramid of Thoth.  There was magic back in the large room to the north.  They went back to that room and searched through the trash until they found a magical elven rope, then took the zombies' axes and shields and used the Rug to bring all the treasure back to the Beacon.  They then went up through the trap door to the surface, explored the ruin containing the trap door, saw where they were relative to the Pyramid so they could find it again, and went back down.

The other door led to stairs leading very far down, perhaps 900'.  At the bottom was a dead end passage and a feather painted on the floor.  It did not particularly resemble the Feathers of Maat they found on the previous delve.  As they approached the feather, it produced a loud flatulent sound.  Everyone searched for secret doors at the end of the passage, but Vael was convinced there was not one.  Ioannes, who was pretty sure he found one, borrowed Vael's trap-finding kit to try to open it, and broke the probe.  Everyone tried to open the secret door and failed.  Eventually they convinced Vael to give it a try even though he was pretty sure it was just a crack in the rock not a real secret door, but he managed to prove himself wrong.

The secret door opened, and on the other side was a guard room containing several mages and fighters at the ready.  Their leader, a woman, said "it took you long enough to get that open."  She explained that this was their territory, that they could not let intruders pass, but if they turned around and went back up the stairs, she would let them live.  She also said that she knew who they were and that her associate Lukor had been authorized to negotiate with them, but she had not, so they needed to go back to Goblintown and talk to Lukor.  After a few attempts to extract information, the Right for Riches company retreated upstairs.

They went back through the secret door, past the pit of fire, to the one room in the area they had not explored.  It contained a sarcophagus and several frescoes of an ancient heroic spearman.  The lid came off the sarcophagus easily, and inside were a heavy spear, a helmet, some red armor, and a coffer.  The coffer contained some burned bones, which were magical.  The weapons and armor appeared cheap and non-magical, but Vael didn't want to leave anything behind in case they had hidden powers, so they took it all.  Analyze Magic said that the bones could provide protection from evil, and had additional powers.  While Vael was working on the spell, Vallium saw a glimpse of someone in red armor appear around the corner, then run.  The group briefly pursued, but didn't want to abandon Vael, so went back.

The group forgot that there were stairs up nearby, and went all the way back across the chasm and across Upper Goblintown to the teleporting pyramid.  The goblins were a bit panicked; they said some Settites had come in through a locked door and there had been a standoff, but not an actual battle.  The Settites were gone now.  The company went south and west to the indoor pyramid then pulled the lever to teleport to its twin on the Well of Light level.

They first visited the Ruby Chair, where Vallium confidently sat down then said "The Font of Magic."  Nothing happened.  Several other people said the same words from various positions, then re-read the Mithric sign on the floor “Speak the Secret Name and Claim Thy Reward.”  They had spoken a secret name, but no reward had appeared.  Not sure what they were doing wrong, they went south to feed the baboons.  Yamki was not at his usual post, but Bumpko was there, and accepted the monthly gift of food.  He indicated that the Thane had not returned and the baboons were grateful for the return of Bobo and Bifki.

Vallium led them to the library of Thoth, unlocked the door, let everyone in, then locked the door.  They then spread out the Teleporter Rug and methodically loaded all the books into their wheelbarrow, took them through the Rug to the Beacon, and put them in their new library.  Once all the books were on the other side they left Basil and Stamelis to sort them, and went back to the Well of Light.

They went north and west to the librarian's chamber with the fear trap outside.  Aided by Uvash's Amulet of Courage, nobody ran away.  They searched the room again and did a better job this time, finding a secret door on the south wall.  Opening it led to a small room with shelved built into the wall, and a table in the center of the room with a pile of papers on it.  In total the room contained about 40 books and 20 scrolls, plus the scrawled notes on the table.  The notes included a letter from someone named Hellas to someone named Neferet, accusing her of necromancy and stealing some Archon's circlet, and saying that she couldn't have all the books in the secret library because they were secret and her quarters near the Great Hall were too exposed.  They scooped everything up and put it all in a Bag of Holding.  They didn't want Stamelis to see whatever secrets this room might contain, so they decided they would put it in one of the side rooms where he didn't go rather than in their library.

Deciding to explore a bit more, Vallium led them north and west to a door they had never opened.  Behind it was a room containing some trash and some kind of magical clockwork raven.  When approached, it spouted some nonsense.  When Vallium touched it, it shocked him, but not severely enough to do real damage.  Figuring it might be worth some money, they took it back to the Beacon.  They then recovered their Rug and Vael flew it up the Well of Light to the surface, where they could walk to the Beacon.

Vael started sorting through the pile of books in one of the side rooms of the Beacon, which contained the golden teleport panels that they could not activate.  One book was magical, so he looked at that one first.  The first page contained a title.  The next half-dozen or so pages contained vivid pictures of underground scenes, possibly in the Halls of Arden Vul.  As he flipped to the next page, he felt his eyes being ripped out of his face.  He screamed for help, but nobody heard him through the iris door.  He passed out in pain.  Later, he awakened and stumbled out through the iris door, blind and bloody.  Basil found him and ran to get Ioannes, who hit Vael with a couple of healing spells to stabilize him.  With Vael out of immediate danger but still missing his eyes. Ioannes and Uvash went back to Gosterwick to visit all the temples and see which clerics could deal with Vael's problem.  Several clerics had the Regeneration spell, which would cause his eyes to grow back over the course of about a month.  That was inconvenient, so they went to Jador the Just, the head of the Temple of Mitra and the best healer in Gosterwick, who could, with the help of several other clerics to help provide mana, cast Instant Regeneration and have Vael's eyesight back the same day.  The price was steep, but Vael was willing to pay it.  Once he could see again, he resolved to never read a magical book again without first spending an hour casting Analyze Magic to look for curses.

GM's Comments:

The book trap was so hilariously unfair.  Arden Vul is old-school.  Fortunately for Vael, he had enough money to afford high-level healing spells, and friends to lead him to the temple, so he was only blind for a few hours.

That was a high-information, low-combat, low-treasure session.  Until they found the Secret Library of Thoth (which they could have found months ago, if they hadn't missed a secret door, or the note indicating that there was a Secret Library), and got a massive trove of valuable books.  That turned it into a high-treasure-but-we-don't-want-to-sell-it delve, the usual problem.

Achievements:

• None

XP:

• Exploration: 10 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: Some magic bones and a whole lot of books and scrolls, 1-2 XP depending on what they sell
• Achievements: 0 XP
• Total: 2-3 XP

Next Week:

• Talk to the spirit of the bones
• Use the Plant Speech scroll they found to talk to the tree in the Forum of Arden Vul
• Go through the Crypts of Thoth to the caves north of the Temple of Set
• Attack the Temple of Set, killing and destroying and looting
• Explore the secret door in the back of a cell in the Settite jail, again
• Explore the western Well of Light level

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 36: Rescuing Deino's Kids

Date: 

Basilsday, 4th of Fidios, 2993 AE

Weather: 

Cold, overcast, flurries

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)

Basilisk, Mercenary monk (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Many goblins

Gog, exiled varumani

Several orge guards

A Set Deacon and several Set guards

Weskenim, King of the United Goblin Tribes

Skimmel, Reeflik, Palestrim, and Gribble: King Weskenim's advisors

Temrin, goblin Royal Artist

Hama and company, adventurers

6 skeletons

6 skeletal stirges

Many fungal foresters

Many beastmen, loyal to Deino

6 beastmen, loyal to Androsia

2 phase salamanders

Craastonistorex, green dragon

Wyvern, in service to Craastonistorex

Count Skleros, beastman commander

Guardian of Thoth

6 construct spearmen

The Plan:

• Bring the Scepter / Flute of the Goblins to King Weskenim for a reward
• See if the beastmen's stone chest in the Great Cavern could be taken
• Explore the northeast part of the Great Cavern
• Go to the northwest part of the Great Cavern, and defeat Androsia if possible
• Bring Androsia's (possibly charmed) beastmen back to the Children of Deino

What Happened:

With two pairs of Rugs of Instant Access Available, the Right for Riches company set up one pair between their apartments in the Arcane Practitioners' Club in Gosterwick and the secret room of the Beacon.  They put one Rug from the other pair in the library of the Beacon, and took the other one with them.  They instructed Basil to be ready in the Beacon on adventuring days in case they needed help.

From the Beacon, Vael used Blink Other to teleport Vallium through the roof over the stairs to the surface, then used Blink to follow a few seconds later.  There was no trouble, so they set out the Rug to let the others join them.  Everyone walked to the Pyramid of Thoth and descended to Upper Goblintown, then down the secret stairs behind  the baboon fresco to Gog's Cave, then through the goblins' Wet Caves and down to Goblintown.  They took the long, safe way around the level to King Weskenim's court.  There were various goblins and even a group of Settites waiting outside, but Palestrim was not sitting in his chair.  Vael asked an ogre on guard if they could see King Weskenim, and the ogre eventually told him that Weskenim was down in the Goblin Great Hall dealing with his subjects.

The group circled all the way back around the level to the spiral stairs leading to the Goblin Great Hall.  There, King Weskenim was telling a human adventurer named Hama that if he wanted his elven friend freed, he needed to find the Scepter of the Goblins.  Or, if he couldn't do that, perform another great service such as opening the Goblin Great Gates to the west.  Hama bowed low to the King then took his companions west, presumably to check out the Gates.

Vael told the King that he had important news and asked for a word in private.  After shaking the hands of a few followers and making a speech about the new patches that Temrin had completed to award to whichever brave goblins (or possibly goblin allies) found the Scepter of the Goblins, the King stepped around the corner to talk to Vael.  Vael pulled the Scepter / Flute out of his bag.  The king and his advisors gasped, then discussed whether that was a varumani bone, and how they could keep the Varumani Thegn from being offended by it.  King Weskenim said he would like to take it to his Witch Doctors for a close look, then he would meet them in his throne room.

About 30 minutes later, Palestrim admitted the Right for Riches company to the King's throne room.  The throne room had new sacks and chests lining the walls, a gold statue of a cat on a shelf of honor, and many copper coins just piled up.  King Weskenim said the Scepter was definitely magical and was definitely 100% the real Scepter of the Goblins, made by the great goblin king Trollreaper.  He said that Trollreaper's name was not one they mentioned among the varumani, so he would probably only show the Scepter to the goblin people once when no varumani were around, then hide it.  He then pointed at his new cat statue, chests and sacks of loot, and piles of coins, and said that the Five Fingers of Destiny had shared a great hoard with him, and that he would be passing much of it on to them as a reward for finding his Scepter.  

King Weskenim asked if they had means of transporting many coins.  Vael said they did, but asked for a private room.  The King said he didn't have any extra rooms right now, but they could maybe borrow one for a little while.  Reeflik, one of his advisors, left for a few minutes, then returned and led the group north to a room with two doors, containing some large bins of mushrooms (Ioannes thought they were mostly white ribs, but one bin contained  cloud caps) and some long poles with hooks on the end.  He opened the far door, summoned the mushroom-pickers, and told them to not come back into this room until they were told these people were done in there.  The Right for Riches company used their Rug to go back to the Beacon and get two wheelbarrows (one normal, one Living) and two shovels.  They then used the wheelbarrows to transport many copper coins to the mushroom storage room, and then used the Rug to take them to the Beacon.  It took a while, but they eventually got all their coins back to the Beacon.

The Right for Riches company said farewell to the King, went back to the surface, and then went south to the Long Stair.  Not wanting to climb down it in the icy weather, everyone except Vael and Basilisk stepped through the Rug, and Vael and Basilisk Levitated down to the secret door.  They put the Rug down, and eventually the others joined them, describing how Basil had been industriously sorting all their coins into neatly counted piles, until they told him not to bother since they were just going to put them back in the wheelbarrows and Rug-teleport them to the Rarities Factor for deposit.

Vallium opened the secret door, went west to investigate the big stone beastman chest, and said it was too heavy to lift.  Vael searched it for traps, found freshly applied poison on the lock, and used Lockmaster and Apportation spells to unlock and open the chest without touching it.  It was full of supplies, nothing very valuable, so they refrained from looting it, and Vael magically closed and locked the chest.  Vallium then led everyone east through the side caves, then north through the Great Cavern to the Lake.  There everyone again stepped through the Rug, while Vael and Basilisk flew over the lake and up the river to the northeastern tunnels.

Once everyone stepped back out the Rug, Vallium led them east, to a cavern full of skeletons, with some armor behind them that Vael and Ioannes though might be magical.  Before they could approach the armor, the skeletons started to rise.  Half of the skeletons appeared to be human, the other half stirges, and they all attacked.  The battle was fairly quick, with Basilisk stunning skeletons with Kiai, Vallium and Uvash smashing skeletons, Vael using Shape Air to smash skeletal stirges against the wall, and Ioannes mostly hanging back with his shield up.

When all the skeletons were defeated, the group picked up the magic scale armor they had spotted, as well as a few coins and gems and flasks and a scroll case.  They then explored a cave to the north, which contained a pool of water.  Vallium asked them to have the Rug ready so he could go back to the Beacon to warm up, then dived into the nearly-freezing water, holding his glowing stone in front of him.  On the bottom he spotted a limed-over skeleton, wearing a pouch, with some kind of bronze rod on the bottom next to him.  He dived twice more, first bringing up the rod, then the skeleton.  Freezing, he excused himself and went back through the Rug to the Beacon, where he asked Basil to set up the magical Tripod of Heating.  After a few minutes to warm up and dry his clothes, he went back through the Rug where the others were standing guard.  The group then took all the treasure through the Rug into the Beacon, and Vael and Basilisk took the Rug and flew out of the side caves, to the northern part of the Great Cavern, above the cliff.  They put the Rug down.

As the group reassembled, they spotted some beastmen moving within their caged-off area to the north.  Vael mentioned to them that they were going to try to rescue some of their comrades, and asked if they would still be there in a few minutes.  Excited, the beastman sergeant said they would remain there on alert.  Right for Riches then followed Vallium through a secret door in the west wall of the Great Cavern, then through some western side passages until they reached the cavern of the fungal foresters.  Ioannes gestured a desire to go past them to the secret door.  The largest forester said something to the others in their strange language, and they all moved south to make room.  Vallium opened the secret door into Androsia's cave.  Androsia was not there, but a half-dozen of her beastmen were, and they were looking even skinnier than last time.  Vael said something about Androsia having some food for them back in the Great Cavern.  One beastman was skeptical and said they had guard duty, but the rest said they were going for food and might bring him some back if there was enough, so he relented and said he would go with them.

Right for Riches escorted the beastmen back through the side caves to the Great Cavern.  As Vallium opened the secret door to the Great Cavern, the Children of Androsia spotted the Children of Deino on guard in their supply cage, and their sergeant started to yell, but then Vael dropped a Mass Daze spell on the whole group.  The sergeant stopped yelling and the beastmen started placidly staring into space.  The other beastmen came over, thanked the company, and led their former and possibly future comrades into the cage, then through a door on the north wall of the cage, back toward Deino's territory.

Before leaving the Great Cavern, Vael suggested exploring the island to the northeast where they had seen a statue and some big lizards.  Everyone walked along the edge of the cliff until they were above the island.  After some discussion, Vallium attached his magic rope to a handhold and everyone climbed down.  It was still too far to the island to safely jump, so Vael cast Flight on Vallium.  Vallium, Vael, and Basilisk flew over to the island, while both clerics stayed at the base of the cliff.  The two phase salamanders tried to invisibly ambush the intruders, but they had been spotted on a previous visit so the intruders were too alert.  Vallium blocked a couple of attacks, Basiliks stunned both salamanders, and Vallium chopped them up.  While Vallium skinned the salamanders in case their skins or organs were valuable, Vael investigated the statue, and found a small pile of gear at its base, including a couple of magic torches and a magic statuette of a cat.  They once again used the Rug to teleport all the loot to the Beacon.  There was some discussion of messing with the vaguely reptilian statue, perhaps putting its head back on top of its body.  Vael and Ioannes both wanted to try, but Vallium, the only one strong enough to lift the stone head, declined.

The group then went south across the Great Cavern, again using the Rug to teleport to the Beacon as Vael and Basilisk flew across the lake.  Vallium led everyone through the southeastern caves back to the secret exit to the Cliff Face, and Vael and Basilisk Levitated back up to the ruins.  The group reformed and started hiking north toward the Pyramid of Thoth, when they heard a loud crash to the west.  Walking over to the dam to check on the noise, they saw a sack on top of the dam, along with a lot of small bones.  The bones were the skeletons of about a banda of beastmen.  The sack contained a single earring and a long note from Craastonistorex.  It said that their tribute was sub-par, with trash like a single earring that someone's ex-girlfriend left in their apartment and some chess pieces with no chess board and small piles of tiny little modern coins not being acceptable.  It said that Craas was giving them one more chance, as eating them would require training new Wardens of the Dam, but the tribute had better improve.  It also said to tell Deino to resume paying her tribute or he'd eat more of her kids, and that the piggies tasted the best.

Vael wrote an insincere apology note to the dragon and put it in the sack.  They gathered up all the bones to return to Count Skleros.  Vael Levitated up to see if anything else could have caused the loud noise, and spotted a wyvern flying far to the southwest, but nothing else suspicious.  They resumed hiking east then north, then descended through the pyramid to the Glory of Weskenim.  They proceded south to the border of beastman territory, where Vallium made a lot of noise until a beastman guard came to investigate.  Vael asked to talk to Count Skleros.  The Count showed up a few minutes later and thanked the group for rescuing his men, who were currently being de-charmed by Mother.  Vael gave him the last page of the dragon's note and the sack of bones.  Skleros was suddenly much less happy, but said he would bring the note to Mother and they would honorably inter the dead.  Vael asked for a meeting in seven days to address the dragon problem, and Skleros said he could do that.

Vallium next wanted to return to the Chamber of Painful Knowledge and ask Thoth a question.  They got there, through the gray-green mist, and Vallium asked both clerics to be ready in case he was badly hurt.  He then grabbed the obelisk and asked Thoth for one of his secret names.  Vallium heard "The Font of Magic!" as he received a severe electrical shock.  Somehow he avoided passing out.  Ioannes cast Stop Bleeding, followed by Major Healing, and Vallium was better, except for some scorched-off hair.

After a few minutes to recover, Vallium said they should explore the glowing room to the northwest, and led everyone there.  There was obvious magical light from the ceiling, and frescoes of the goddess Maat on the wall, handing a feather to a worshipper.  There was a marble dais in the center of the room, with an onyx platform on top, and then a magical feature floating in the air above the platform.  After some discussion, Vallium grabbed the feather, and another one appeared.  Three more people each took a feather.

With that room discovered, Vallium said they should explore the northeast part of the level next.  They went east to the room with the locked bronze doors with peepholes.  Vael had everyone else go through the Rug, then Blinked through the door, using the peephole to see where he was going, then dropped the Rug and had the others rejoin them.  They crossed the bridge over the Great Chasm (not so wide this far north, but very deep) to the room with the statue of Thoth with the movable arms.  They started manipulating statue arms to every combination of positions to try to open another door.  This summoned an ibis guardian of Thoth, which Vallium dispatched, but then the door eventually popped open.

Going through the door, they found passages connecting to the magic fountain where Uvash got his donkey ears and to a room with some looted sarcophagi and a tunnel leading south to the Great Chasm.  From the pool room, there was a door south, which led to a cave containing many bones and a creepy obelisk, with the ceiling well out of sight.  Vael thought he remembered this room, and flew up to verify that it was the same obelisk he'd seen a level up. They avoided touching the obelisk, but Vael took some notes of the odd runes on it.  They also searched the bones and found a spear.

From the obelisk room, they went back north past the pool room, then east to a door, a corridor, and another door.  At the second door they heard a sizzling sound and felt heat.  Beyond was a large round pool of magical fire.  Some investigation showed a golden key in the middle of the fire, along with some kind of fire creature, and some Mithric writing: "The fire of Truth cleanses the mind and transports the body of those faithful who proclaim that Thoth Rules!”  After multiple failed attempts to talk to the fire creature, Ioannes yelled "Thoth Rules!" and a path appeared through the fire to the key.  Ioannes entered the fire and heard a voice in his head "Thoth values your love.  Do you wish to be cleansed or to be transported?"  Ioannes answered "cleansed" and felt something magical and pleasant wash over him, but did not notice any real effects.  He was able to grab the golden key, though.

Nobody else played with the fire, and they searched the walls for secret doors.  Uvash found one, with a small hidden keyhole.  Ioannes tried the newly found key in it, and it fit.  Opening the door revealed a passage south that turned east and revealed a wide passage between two rows of statues.  There were three mosaics on the floor, each showing a blue knot.  As Ioannes stepped out to investigate, the statues animated into constructs, and one tried to spear him from behind.  As Ioannes strugged to get his shield up, Vael used Blink Other and moved Ioannes out of the line of fire.

A fight began against 6 spearman constructs.   Basilisk and Uvash both used their holy abilities to become faster and tougher.  Vael cast Blur on Uvash.  Basilisk then rushed around at high-speed repeatedly stunning the constructs with Kiai, while Vallium and Uvash bashed them.  The constructs were tough, but had a hard time getting any attacks in, as they kept getting stunned.  Two of were destroyed outright, and the other four knocked out.  Basilisk tried her Vampiric Bite on an unconscious construct and was disappointed that it did not work.  At that point they destroyed the four unconscious constructs.

The eastern wall had a large picture of a middle aged man with empty eye sockets, very similar to those they had seen on the magical face statues, but this one was not magical.  There were also two doors.  But at that point the group felt like they had explored enough for one day, and turned back for the exit.

GM's Comments:

King Weskenim seemed to appreciate the Scepter / Flute, though the form of his reward was a bit inconvenient, and would have been even less convenient if the group had lacked teleportation magic.

Count Skleros seemed to appreciate getting his lost troopers back, though this did not yield an immediate reward, and the news about the dragon attacks seemed to upset him.

This session involved a bit of combat, a bit of exploration, and a bit of treasure, but no huge discoveries.  Right for Riches seems committed to typing up loose ends before starting any large new tasks.

Achievements:

• One Beastman's Rescue Is Another Beastman's Kidnapping: 1 XP for whatever that was

XP:

• Exploration: 6 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: A few coins and several minor magical items, 1 XP
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3 XP

Next Week:

• Meet with Count Skleros about the dragon
• Get their award patches from King Weskenim for recovering the Scepter / Flute
• Open those doors behind the Pit of Fire
• Explore the other unexplored room they know of in the northeastern part of the Glory of Thoth level
• Try their Secret Name of Thoth on the Ruby Chair
• Look for a Secret Library near the librarian's quarters
• Explore the western part of the Well of Light level, looking for a teleportation circle