DFRPG Arden Vul Session 42a: Neferet

Date: 

Tothsday, 4th Mercedonian Day, 2994 AE

Weather: 

Cold, mostly sunny, snowy

Player Characters: 

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 (Frank)

Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)

Significant NPCs:

Mariposa, Chyrsalis's monkey familiar

Onyx, cat genius

Secondary cats

Fael, Half-Elven Druid

Statuette of Bastet, Goddess of Cats

Bottleneck, Goblin sergeant

Many goblins

Yamki, 3-armed giant intelligence baboon

Many baboons

Temrin, Goblin Royal Artist

Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist

Killik, Goblin Boss of the Wet Caves

Several ogre royal guards

Several goblin royal guards

Palestrim, Goblin Majordomo

King Weskenim, King of the United Goblin Tribes

Gribble, Goblin chief

Construct of Kerbog Khan

Lukor, Thorcin mage of the Eighth Collegium

Other mages and fighters of the Eighth Collegium

Several beastmen

Mummy

2 Shadows

Neferet, Greater Mummy

The Plan:

• Hire Fael to translate, make an offering to Bastet, and ask the statuette of Bastet questions
• Drop off the fancy chess board as tribute to Craastonistorex
• Travel to the Well of Light, deliver food to the baboons, and perform the Litany of Light
• Travel to the Goblin Market, and commission a map to another Command Bracelet from Temrin
• Talk to the mysterious wizards near the Goblin Market
• Travel to the Great Hall and look for secret doors leading to Neferet
• Explore west of the Well of Light

What Happened:

Vallium announced he needed to take a trip to Newmarket on personal business.  Not wanting to venture into Arden Vul without sufficient bodyguards, the Right for Riches company went to the Grudge Brigade and managed to hire both Thronebreaker and Chysalis.  (Hiring two mercenaries for the same mission was a violation of Grudge Brigade policy, but business was slow during the winter, and Coinbase was out of town.)  Ioannes Blessed both mercenaries.

Vael, Uvash, and Ioannes hired Fael the druid to translate Cat for them.  Fael asked that they go outside the oppressive (even though only 5% finished) town walls where it was easier to commune with nature.  Onyx and a couple of other cats followed.  When they got to an area she thought was sufficiently pristine, Fael cast Beast Speech on Vael.  He made an offering of fish then asked the Statuette of Bastet three questions.  A shimmering avatar of Bastet the cat goddess appeared.  Bastet didn't know how Horus died and resented the insinuation that every dead bird was a cat's fault.  She also indicated that her way of dealing with Set was to get away from him and hide.  She had no idea who Neferet was.  The avatar of the cat goddess, and the fish, disappeared.  Vael then turned to Onyx and asked if he had any input.  Onyx said that their apartment needed better security when the big guy wasn't there, to protect the cats.

Back in Gosterwick, Vael picked up the fancy silver and ivory chess board he had commissioned from Chairduster the jeweler.  They gathered both mercenaries and a monkey, then went through the green Teleport Rug to the Beacon.  Chyrsalis grabbed a purple Teleport Rug and Vael Blinked her through the roof over the stairs, up to the surface ruins.  Not seeing any trouble, she put the Rug down, and the others came through to join her.  They all hiked south to the dam, where Vael left the chessboard and a note.  They then turned around and hiked northeast to the Pyramid of Thoth, then went down many stairs to Upper Goblintown.

Bottleneck welcomed them and said it had been a pretty quiet week, only one zombie attack, with only a couple of goblins lost.  They went southwest to the indoor pyramid, then pulled the lever on top to teleport to the other indoor pyramid near the Well of Light.  Everyone walked east through the Well of Light, whose main mirror was covered by a blanket.  When they reached the rooms north of the Howling Caves, they saw Yamki, who greeted them in booming baboon-accented Archontean.  Vael said he'd have their food in a minute, then set down the purple Rug and teleported back to the Beacon.  He came back in a minute with a levitating Living Wheelbarrow full of food.  Yamki had a few baboons unload it.  Vael said they would be doing the Litany of Light so all the mirrors would be lit up for a little while.  Yamki yelled out a warning to the other baboons.

Vael stowed the wheelbarrow back in the Beacon, then they all went west to the Well of Light and removed the blanket, lighting everything up brightly.  The group then visited all four stations of the Litany of Light.  Ioannes performed the Thothian rituals correctly, temporarily gaining an intelligence bonus, infravision, the ability to see secrets, and invisibility.  Vael copied everything Ioannes did, and also gained all four bonuses.  Uvash tried copying the heretical rituals, but failed to finish because he knew Zodarrim would not approve.  He did not gain any bonuses.

They went back through the pyramid teleporter to Upper Goblintown, then down the ramp to the Wet Caves.  Killik asked Uvash where the rest of his company was, and when invisible Vael said something, Killik told him to be careful with that, as not everyone appreciated unseen visitors.  They continued down to the Goblin Market, where some human merchants were trying to hire goblin guides.  Vael spoke to Temrin to try to commission a map, but Temrin indicated that as Royal Artist he was only allowed to take commissions approved by the King.  Everyone went upstairs to try to meet the King.  When they reached the Royal Court outside the King's room, one of the ogre guards smelled one of the invisible visitors, and yelled for the other goblin and ogre royal guards.  One ogre almost managed to grab Vael, but he blinked away.  Another did manage to grab Ioannes.  Palestrim came out to see what was happening, and told the ogres to treat Vael and Ioannes gently, but that they could not visit the King while invisible without an ogre holding onto them.  Eventually everyone was admitted to the King's chamber, where he sat on his bed petting a cat.  He said he had news for them: Sir Sorrow had departed, freeing up his Royal Guest Room, and they were invited to stay there.  He would have his brother Gribble show them their room.  Vael asked the king if he could have Temrin draw a map.  The King said it might be possible to hire the Royal Artist, but his services were highly in demand and thus expensive: $5000, payable only in silver or gold, no copper.  (The room was still full of stacks of copper coins from the Treasury of Thoth.)  Vael agreed, and said they'd have the payment soon.

Gribble grumbled about making the king's own brother do work, but led them to their guest room, and gave them a key.  Once in the room, Vael put the purple Rug on the floor, and Uvash stepped through to the Beacon, went through the green Rug to Gosterwick, walked over to Rarities Factor, withdrew a bunch of gold coins, then returned.  They went back to King Weskenim's room and, after being made to wait for a bit, the King took their coins and gave them a note for Temrin.

They went back down to the Goblin Market, where a small bipedal construct of some sort was talking to the Thorcin merchants.  The construct claimed to be Kerbog Khan, and claimed to know more about the Halls than anyone else living, but said that All Deals Must Be Sealed in Blood.  The merchant didn't want to give the construct a blood sample and asked one of his guards to deal with the construct for him.  The construct said "no, principals only, your bodyguard's blood is not enough."  Vael was curious but focused on the business at hand, and dropped both the Royal Commission and the Command Bracelet on Temrin's table, where they became visible.  Temrin said he was happy to make a map at his King's command, and asked if he could keep the bracelet.  Vael said no, he needed it back, but Temrin could make a sketch of it.  Temrin asked if the other bracelet was also red, and Vael wasn't sure, so he put the bracelet back on and remotely asked Akla-Chah.  Akla-Chah said that both the Captain's and First Officer's Command Bracelets were red, but she wasn't sure about any others as she'd only seen those two.  That was good enough for Vael, and he told Temrin to find another red bracelet just like this one.  Temrin traced the bracelet, and drew a quick sketch of it, and copied the glyphs on the back, then set it back down and said "All right, I'll try to have your map ready in a few days."

The group went west then south past a couple of ogre guards into an empty passage, then up through a hole.  Beyond was a door to a secluded room.  They knocked on the door.  When asked who was there, they identified themselves, and Vael said that two of them were invisible.  The person on the other side said to wait a minute.  A minute later, the door opened.  Inside was Lukor, the mage they had met earlier, along with five companions, who appeared to be two more mages and three warriors.  Lukor looked right at Vael as though he wasn't invisible, and asked them to come in.  They closed the door, and Lukor said that he had been waiting for their visit, as he needed their help.  Vael had a lot of questions.  Lukor said he couldn't answer too many questions yet, but he could refer to them as the Eighth Collegium.  They wanted a direct meeting with King Weskenim: they had been sitting here for weeks, occasionally meeting with Palestrim but never the King.  He would pay a thousand silver if they could arrange the meeting.  They could also provide invisibility, silence, or a distraction if the King wanted to meet secretly.  Vael asked questions about alliances with Settites and Varumani.  Lukor said they mostly avoided the Settites and would like to be friends with the Varumani.  And they would also like to be friends with the goblins, if they king would meet with them.

Leaving, the group went back up to Upper Goblintown, then south to the Beastman barricade.  Vael cast Thunderclap to get the guards' attention.  When a guard came out to investigate, Vael said they wanted passage to the Great Hall.  The guard got his sergeant, who agreed that their group could traverse their territory to the Great Hall, and warned them about gargoyles.  Once they reached the Great Hall, the whole group slowly circled the huge room, examining the walls.  Looking up, Ioannes noticed a gargoyle swooping toward Mariposa the monkey, and yelled a warning.  Mariposa dodged the attack, and Chyrsalis and Thronebreaker smashed the gargoyle.  With the threat dealt with, they continued circling the room, triggering a magic mouth, which said something about Priscus Pulcher and some eyes.  Near the magic mouth, Vael and Ioannes spotted two secret doors.  Vael managed to open the southern one.

Thronebreaker went into the narrow hallway first, and a few feet in, something dispelled his Continual Light and Bless spells.  He came back out and they had a discussion, then Chysalis and Mariposa went in.  The permanent light on her Staff of Blue Light did not go out, but her Bless went away.  She made it down the hallway, past a few charred corpses, into a room containing a large sarcophagus.  There were alcoves north and south, with three more smaller sarcophagi.  Nothing jumped out, so she returned to the others.  Vael put the purple Rug on the floor, and he and Uvash and Ioannes stepped through to the Beacon.  Chrysalis and Thronebreaker went back to the tomb and dropped the Rug, where the others joined them.  Ioannes re-Blessed both mercenaries, then everyone sat down to rest for a while.

When everyone felt rested, they started examining the room.  The central sarcophagus had some Mithric inscriptions on the sides indicating that it belonged to Neferet, Beloved of Thoth, and a picture of a woman on top.  The others were blank.  They went to the northern alcove, where Thronebreaker used Power Blow and knocked the lid off the sarcophagus.  A mummy jumped out at him.  Everyone expected something like that, and nobody was surprised.

A battle ensued with the mummy.  During the battle, a couple of spells came from an unknown direction, blinding Chrysalis and failing to blind Thronebreaker.  Chrysalis was a good enough blind fighter that this was a minor inconvenience, and they continued smashing the mummy.  Eventually it went down.  Vael cast Mage Sight and saw that the western wall of the room was magical.  Chrysalis eventually investigated and went right through it, not that she could see.  Meanwhile a couple of shadows appeared from the south end of the room and went after Mariposa.

Another mummy, this one a female one wearing Thothian robes and a magic circlet, was in the western part of the room behind the illusory wall, throwing spells.  This was clearly Neferet.  Once she realized she had been found, she pulled out a magic bead, and threw it in the middle of the four visible opponents (and her two shadows).  This exploded into a dome of force, killing one of the shadows.  Thronebreaker, Uvash, and Mariposa, trapped in the force dome with the other shadow, eventually defeated it, with a critical hit by Thronebreaker stunning the shadow and hastening its demise.  Neferet cast Darkness over the southern half of the room, effectively blinding everyone there.  Chrysalis, with Blind Fighting, kept going after Neferet, who kept Blinking away from her attacks.  Thronebreaker tried breaking the dome, and he couldn't get through it, but he could move it around the room.  Thronebreaker and Uvash then started shoving the dome toward where they thought Neferet was, trying to pin her in a corner and crush her.

Neferet pulled a bead off her necklace and swallowed it, turning invisible.  She then blinked out of danger while Chrysalis, still blind, went around the room trying to detect her with her other senses.  Uvash cast Sense Spirit, which gave him a fix on Neferet's location regardless of her invisibility.  Vael cast Create Fire where Uvash said Neferet was, losing his invisibility.  Neferet screamed something about burning in Mithric, then blinked away again.  She threw another bead, making a second dome of force, this one damaging Chrysalis.  Vael cast Shape Fire and started moving the fire around the room to try to trap Neferet, while Ioannes cast Stop Bleeding on Chrysalis.  Neferet had to Blink again to avoid the fire, and ended up in the passage to the east.

We paused there, with everyone except Ioannes and Vael trapped in the two Beads of Force, and Neferet still fighting having used two Beads of Force, two Beads of Invisibility, and presumably a ton of mana.  A lesser mummy and two shadows were also down.

Battle in Neferet's Tomb

GM's Comments:

Invisibility is definitely double-edged, if you use it in civilized areas.  It makes everyone suspicious.

Using the Teleport Rugs to let three PCs bypass the Dispel effect was clever.

It was funny watching Thronebreaker use Power Blow to try to do massive damage to shadows, which were diffuse.  (Of course he didn't have their stats, so he couldn't be sure it wouldn't help.)

Sense Spirits and Blind Fighting were both really useful partial counters to Neferet's Darkness and Invisibility.

Beads of Force are super fun if you have them.  Maybe less fun if your opponent has them.

Achievements:

None yet, stopped in mid-session

XP:

None yet, stopped in mid-session

Next Week:

The thrilling conclusion of the epic battle.  Do the PCs defeat Neferet and gain the Iron Circlet of Ghanor?  Does Neferet defeat the PCs and line her tomb with all their stuff and make Vallium recruit a new group of allies?  Or does Neferet escape?  I have no idea.