Date:
Demmasday, 30th of Molivios, 2994 AE
Weather:
Warm, sunny
Player Characters:
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Significant NPCs:
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI
Many goblins
Bottleneck, Goblin sergeant
Temrin, Goblin Royal Artist
Lukor, Ambassador from the Eighth Collegium to the Goblins
Gribble, Chief of the Goblin Forum
Dworm, Goblin Forum guard and food merchant
Yoburra, Varmani ambassador to the Forum
Blood-Seeking Demon
2 Flensing Demons
Alexandros, Librarian of Set
Succubus, disguised as a Set Deacon
3 Wights
Many zombies
Many ghasts
2 Mummies
Spectre
Imprisoned mummy
Rudishva dust ionizer robot
The Plan:
- Get a map from Temrin in the Goblin Market
- Deliver food to the Goblin Forum
- Talk to the Varumani ambassador about the suspected Varumani passport
- Clear more rooms near the Goblin Forum
What Happened:
Rather than taking much time off, the Right for Riches company headed back into Arden Vul the next day. Uvash could not make it, as he had church. Before leaving Gosterwick, Ioannes cast Bless on Vallium and got his power item recharged, and Vael bought a wheelbarrow full of food at the Grain Market.
The group went through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon, then shared their delve plan with Basil, who dutifully wrote it all down. They went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Rudishva Cloister area, then walked over to the slime pit room with the shaft leading up. There Ioannes stepped back through the Rug to the Beacon, while Vael and Vallium Levitated up the shaft, then north through a secret door to the cavern north of the ruined Temple of Set.
They dropped the Rug and waited for Ioannes to rejoin them, then hiked south through the Temple of Set (past goblin guards), east through the ruined Temple of Thoth (past more goblin guards), and then into the Glory of Weskenim. There they briefly spoke to Bottleneck, who indicated some trouble with an adventuring band living upstairs. They headed east, then south and down to the Wet Caves, then down to Goblintown.
Arriving in the Goblin Market, they spoke to Temrin, who went to get their map to the Tablet of the Beacon from the vault. After chatting with some other merchants, they went south and down a hole to the hidden Embassy of the Eighth Collegium. Lukor spoke to them briefly, stated that King Weskenim still kept putting off a direct meeting, and asked about what had happened to the Forum of Set. Lukor asked again that they influence King Weskenim to talk to him.
The group went back up to Upper Goblintown, then west and down the stairs to the Goblin Forum. There they greeted Gribble, then asked Dworm how their food was selling. He said it all sold again, with the Varumani buying most of it again. Vael took his money, then went to an empty room and used the Rug to go back to the Beacon and get the wheelbarrow full of food. He brought the food to Dworm, and said that he could raise prices 10% and pocket the difference. Vael talked to the other merchants, who indicated business was slow -- not many non-goblins were visiting the Forum yet.
From the Forum, they headed east then south to the former torturer's room. When they entered the room, some of the magic candles were still burning, but they started going out again. Vallium started re-lighting them. Vael cast Magic Aura and See Invisible, and spotted an invisible chest on an invisible shelf over the door. He tried to get the chest, found it was too heavy, then asked Vallium to get it. Vallium took the chest outside the room, and when they all left, the candles stopped going out. Vael opened the chest and its contents became visible. Vallium used the Rug to bring the chest back to the Beacon, and warned Basil not to trip over it. Basil put a bookmark on top of the chest to note its location.
Returning to the Halls, Vallium decided to stay in the room until all the candles went out and see what happened, while Vael and Ioannes stayed just outside the room. When the last candle went out, a blood-red demon with tentacles appeared. Vallium waited a second, and the demon gated in two more demons, these ones like large gorillas with tentacles. Deciding three demons was enough, Vallium attacked, while Vael cast Great Haste on him, and Ioannes, without a Bless spell, hid behind his shield. Vallium eventually dispatched all three demons.
With that room taken care of, the group went northwest from the Forum to the Library of Set. Vael briefly talked to Alexandros the Librarian, then borrowed a few more books. The group then went north to the room whose door had the note from Stephania saying to keep out. Vallium unlocked the door with a Settite key then stepped inside. Inside were a bunch of trashed furniture, 3 wights, and a Set Deacon who kept saying he wanted to be friends and trying some kind of charm effect. All three resisted the Charm effect, while Vallium killed wights, and Vael created fire on the floor to burn the wights. Once the wights were gone, Vallium went after the Deacon. The Deacon, realizing the Charm wasn't working, changed to her true form of a beautiful Succubus to see if that would help, but it did not. Vallium cut her in half, and her body disappeared in a puff of smoke, as she dropped a magic sword.
Alexandros came down the hall to complain about the noise and remind them that that room was dangerous and nobody was supposed to open that door. Vael told him the danger had been dealt with. They searched the room and found some poetry about Theskelon and a bounty from Stephania to someone named Kallion the White for varumani heads. They also found a secret door on the north wall, but decided not to go that way yet.
Vael declared that they needed to clear a safe path to the basket to the south to fully restore trade at the Forum, so they started heading that way. First Vael dispelled the Settite magical darkness, revealing a statue. They warned the goblins that the statue was very dangerous and not to touch it, and made chalk marks on the floor indicating the same. Then they headed south down the Stair of Commerce, and then east to the room where they had previously seen zombies. They opened the door and the zombies were still there. Vallium killed them.
Behind the zombies was a freshly dug tunnel leading to a landing, with stairs north and south. They went south and found a door leading to a storage room they had previously explored from another direction. They went down some stairs to the southwest and found a room with many sarcophagi and a broken statue of Set. Ioannes wandered forward and set off a fire trap, but was protected by his Salamander Amulet. He resolved to stay behind the others, as he still didn't have a Bless spell.
They went further south down the passage, with Vael searching for traps, until Vallium triggered a paralyzation glyph that Vael had missed. Vallium resisted being paralyzed, and Vael used Dispel Magic to eradicate the glyph. While resting from the fatigue of spellcasting, they heard someone approaching from the south. It was a gaggle of ghasts, led by a couple of mummies. Vallium got up and started hitting them with his sword, while Vael cast Great Haste and Blur. One of the mummies yelled tactical advise in a langauge that nobody knew (but Vael could understand thanks to the Command Bracelet). Unfortunately for Team Undead, the strategy was to wrestle Vallium to the ground then slowly chew his face off, but his Ring of Free Action made him too slippery to grapple. It took a while, but eventually the room was rendered undead-free.
The group stopped to rest again, then searched the undead and took some treasures from the mummies, then continued south. There they found many more sarcophagi, three of which were opened. The open ones had minor treasure. Vallium went back through the Rug to the Beacon to grab some crowbars, then started prying more sarcophagi open. The first few had minor treasure. The fourth one had a spectre, which Vallium couldn't hurt until Ioannes cast Affect Spirits on his sword. At that point they decided the risk to reward ratio for opening random sarcophagi wasn't there, and Vael cast Seek Magic and Seek Earth for platinum and gold to look for better treasure. There was magic and gold in the room to the northwest, and platinum in one sarcophagus. Vallium opened that one and got a platinum holy symbol, then they went northwest.
This room had one sarcophagus, which was closed and then sealed shut with iron chains. Vallium used Glass Wall to look inside, and saw a mummy, who seemed aware someone was outside and started clawing at the sarcophagus, then gesturing to be let out. The group decided to leave the mummy there, while they looted the room. Under a table was a whole pile of treasure, including several valuable gold items, several magical items, and a bunch of fancy alabaster canopic jars. They took everything to the Beacon through the Rug, and left the mummy imprisoned.
Vallium said Temrin's map led to the Rudishva Bastion, and indicated that there might be a Tablet of the Beacon there, so they should use the Rudishva Teleporter to go back there and check. They made their way back to the Cloister, then went through the Rudishva Teleporter back to the Beacon, then went through the other Rudishva Teleporter back to the Bastion. There was a known fire trap there, so Vael stayed in the Beacon while the others used Salamander Amulets to survive it. They then dropped the Rug so Vael could join them, and everyone searched the room where they thought the Tablet might be, but didn't find anything. They re-explored the Bastion, again waving their yellow Rudishva identify plaque at the giant skeletons guarding the shaft to avoid trouble. They didn't find anything new, just the cleaner robot, which started following them around in case they made a mess.
Vael decided to use the Repair spell to fix some of the damage they did the first time they broke into the Bastion. He removed the stone slab he had magically created to cover the destroyed Rudishva secret door, then cast Repair to fix the door, and succeeded despite the high-tech nature of the door. However, the door would not open. He called Akla-Chah and asked her about the door. She indicated that the Bastion had a control console that should allow opening and closing the door, if the correct operator card was plugged in. Vallium went back through the Rug to the Beacon to fetch the black card whose use they had not discovered. It plugged into the console. Vallium was able to read enough Rudishva glyphs to find the Open Door button, and opened the secret door into the entry cave. The entry cave contained a couple of Rudishva point defense arrays, which Vallium had mangled. Vael used the console to disable to the point defenses (even though they were already broken), then borrowed Vallium's Amulet of Missile Shield just in case, then went into the cave and cast Repair on both point defense arrays. Despite the high tech nature of the Rudishva defenses, he managed to repair both of them. He went back through the secret door, used the button to close the door, and used the console to enable the point defenses.
At that point, they went back through the Rudishva Teleporter to the Beacon to start identifying all the treasure they'd found.
GM's Comments:
That was an effective delve. Lots of demons and undead killed, lots of treasure found, and no casualties.
There was a map glitch that prevented going north through the secret door from the succubus room, but this wasn't a huge deal as there were other ways to explore. (After the session I fixed the map in about a minute, so maybe I should have fixed it on the fly during play, but I didn't know if it would be a one-minute fix or a half-hour fix and didn't want to risk derailing the session.)
XP:
- Exploration: 5 new locations, 1 XP
- Loot: Lots of stuff. 2 XP
- Achievements: 0 XP
- Total: 3 XP
Next Week:
I think if they get a full party they'll go after Neferet in the Tower of Scrutiny. If they don't, they may keep clearing the area around the Goblin Forum, trying to make it safer for commerce.
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