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
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