Date:
Demmasday, 7th of Deuterios, 2994 AE
Weather:
Cool, rainy
Player Characters:
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Lasselanta "Chrysalis" Ashcroft, Half-Elven mercenary martial artist (ArchonShiva)
Significant NPCs:
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Remagis, un-petrified ancient Thothian priest
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI
Many goblins
Bottleneck, Goblin sergeant
Yamki, 3-armed giant baboon
Bumpko, 4-armed giant baboon
Many large albino baboons
Many wraiths
Corpse of Neferet, greater mummy
Lady Alexia, ruler of Gosterwick
Freydis the Stern, Lady Alexia's steward
Gribble, Chief of the Goblin Forum
Dworm, Goblin Forum guard and food merchant
Yoburra, Varmani ambassador to the Forum
The Plan:
- Attack Neferet and the Wraiths in the Tower of Scrutiny and recover the Iron Circlet of Ghanor
- Explore more rooms south of the Goblin Forum
What Happened:
Uvash's wife and son arrived in Gosterwick, as part of a group of several dwarves travelling from Khazildor. Ioannes started spreading propaganda, telling the merchants of Gosterwick that they could earn great profits selling to the Goblin Forum of Arden Vul.
The group hired Chrysalis and then teleported through the Rug to the Beacon. There they saw Remagis teaching Basil how to tie a tourniquet. Basil explained that Remagis was teaching him First Aid, in exchange for Basil teaching Remagis Modern Archontean.
Vael gave Basil a copy of their delve plan, and then the through went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Cloister, then flew up the shaft to the caves north of the Temple of Set. Ioannes tried using the Cloak of the Bat to fly up, and found that the cloak would not function if he were holding a very bright Continual Light stone, but worked when Vael gave him a dim one.
From the cave, the group went south through the ruined Temple of Set, then east through the ruined Temple of Thoth to Upper Goblintown. They said hello to Bottleneck and the goblin guards, then went south and west to the indoor pyramid, then used the lever on top to teleport to the other indoor pyramid on the Well of Light level. They walked to the Well but saw there wasn't much sunlight coming down the shaft, so didn't attempt the Litany of Light. They headed east toward the Howling Caves. Bumpko was happy to see them, as he didn't expect a food delivery today. He asked if it were some kind of special extra food holiday. Vael went through the Teleporting Rug back to the Beacon and grabbed a wheelbarrow full of food for the baboons.
While the baboons were sharing the food, the group went south through the Howling Caves to the secret door heading into the old Thothian area above the Great Hall. They noticed that all the gargoyles along the bridge were gone. They found the secret door leading to the spiral stairs up to the Tower of Scrutiny.
There, Vael pulled out the two Teeth of Pol, and bandaged them to his wrists. He immediately became even smarter, and much ruder. He ordered the others to guard him, while he cast Wizard Eye and made it invisible and then cast Infravision and Mage Sight and See Invisible on himself. He sent the Eye upstairs to the Tower, where it was blocked by closed doors north and west.
The group snuck quietly up the stairs, where Vael cast Blink Other on his Wizard Eye to get it past the western door. It then snuck around the cellar of the tower, spotting many wraiths, and the corpse of Neferet, wearing the magical iron circlet, hunched over near the central pillar. Nobody believed she was really dead.
The group went back down the stairs out of earshot of the wraiths, and concocted a battle plan. It basically consisted of everyone drinking strength and agility potions, then using Affect Spirits and Great Haste spells, then killing a lot of wraiths. The plan worked pretty well. With the Affect Spirits spell, the diffuse wraiths were much more vulnerable to weapons. Vallium, Uvash, and Chrysalis waded into the wraiths, destroying many of them. The wraiths retreated from melee, using their Drink Life ability to try to injure from afar. Uvash's Protection from Evil spell made him almost immune, but Vallium and Chrysalis were both badly wounded.
Vallium reached Neferet's body, stabbed it a lot, then dragged it back to the stairs. The others retreated there with him. Vael used Apportation to take the Iron Circlet without touching it. Ioannes cast some healing spells, then they re-cast some buffing spells and sent Vallium and Uvash after the remaining wraiths. Some had flown up the central shaft of the tower out of each reach, but Flight spells solved that. The last few wraiths hid in the magical darkness near the top of the shaft. Vallium and Uvash didn't want to go in there, so Vael turned invisible using Larel's Cloak, then Levitated up and used Dispel Magic to get rid of the darkness. Able to see again, Vallium and Uvash killed two of the last three wraiths, while the third one decided to flee out the top of the tower, despite the daylight outside. Unfortunately for the wraith, it wasn't quite cloudy enough for it to survive out there.
With all the wraiths eliminated, they searched the tower. There were a lot of coins and a few weapons on the floor in the center of the cellar. Neferet's body had a magical necklace and a magical gem. A bedroom had some furniture and a few scrolls and keys, plus a magic ring. A closet contained some orange silk. There was an ibis head in the basement with handles, that could be used as a periscope to look out the roof of the Tower in any direction.
With the Tower of Scrutiny cleared, the group paused to let Vael fully analyze the Iron Circlet of Ghanor, which had several beneficial magical effects, but also a drawback. They decided to give it to Lady Alexia in Gosterwick.
Vael removed the Teeth of Pol from his wrists. His intelligence went back to normal, but his surliness remained. Knowing he wasn't fit for talking to anyone, he asked Ioannes to take him to the Temple of Demma in Gosterwick and see if they could fix him. One of the priests cast Remove Curse, but charged a high price for it.
With Vael in less danger of saying something that might get them executed, the group went over to the Azure Keep to give the Circlet to Lady Alexia. After a brief discussion with her guards and a longer discussion with her steward Freydis, Lady Alexia came into the room. She asked where they had found her Circlet. She was somewhat amused that it had been so close to the surface. She asked if they wanted any particular reward, but neither of Vael's ideas were practical, so she just had Freydis give them a lot of gold coins.
The group bought more food for the Goblin Forum, then teleported back to the Beacon and took their usual complicated underground path to the Forum. Gribble greeted them and said he had awards for them. He gave each of them a patch depicting an elephant crushing a statue of a Set animal, and also gave each of them a rock which he said was an authentic piece of the actual destroyed statue.
Dworm said that the Varumani had bought all the surplus food from last week, but had complained about the price increase. Vael went over to the Varumani embassy to tell Yoburra that he couldn't subsidize the food forever and that prices would gradually return to normal. Yoburra said that if prices went up, the Varumani might not buy all the extra food. He then returned to his card game with the junior ambassadors.
The group went south from the Forum, to the Set statue that was still standing. Vael tried Dispelling the magic on the statue, then grabbed the gem eyes, which shocked him, but not very badly. A sound spell calling for guards and warning about thieves also triggered, but since the only guards in the area were friendly goblins, it didn't matter. Vael took the onyx ears and ivory teeth from the statue, then told the goblin guards that the statue was still somewhat dangerous and he didn't recommend touching it. One guard dared another guard to touch it anyway, and he did and got non-fatally shocked, to the amusement of all the other guards.
Vallium led the group further south, to a room with a fireplace that had not been searched to his satisfaction. Vael sent a Continually-Lit Wizard Eye up the chimney. Just a foot above the fireplace, the Eye spotted a soot-covered ring hanging on a nail. Vael reached in and grabbed the ring, which felt magical. He then sent the Wizard Eye all the way up to the surface. It emerged in the swamp in the southwest corner of Arden Vul. A giant frog spotted the glowing eye and tried to eat it. Vael tried leading the frog all the way to the dragon's tower, but the frog declined to leave the swamp.
Vallium pointed out another room on the map, with an altar to Set. The room contained two flimsy Set statues, which they trashed, finding nothing interesting inside. It also had a makeshift stone altar. In one corner were some rocks stacked on top of a bunch of boards. Lifting them up revealed a hole down, to a room full of sarcophagi. Vael Levitated down and recognized the room as a tomb they had recently partly looted. He flew back up, then used Shape Earth to seal the hole with stone from the altar, to reduce the chance that someone else would enter the tomb and find any loot there before they could.
Deciding that was enough exploration for one day, the group went back to the Beacon. There Vael experimented with two Rudishva artifacts, a membrane that fit over the face, and a futuristic helmet. The membrane seemed to filter out smoke, but did not allow breathing underwater. The helmet was a helmet, providing excellent protection to the head, and even a translucent visor to protect the eyes. It also had a stud on one side, which when pressed gave the wearer infravision, despite the helmet not appearing magical. Finally, the helmet also filtered out smoke, as the membrane had.
GM's Comments:
Despite scrying Neferet's corpse in the Tower of Scrutiny multiple times, the players refused to believe she was actually dead. They thought that's how mummies rested, or that was a fake decoy Neferet, or something. But, no, it was actually her, and fleeing into the Tower of Scrutiny had been a poor tactical choice, as not all undead are on the same team.
The wraiths had forced the group to retreat twice, but this time they were buffed to the point where the wraiths could not stand against them.
Foundry broke hard this session, so we ran things theater of the mind. I found tracking hit points, spell durations, turn order, everyone's positions, etc. in a text file a bit annoying, but doable. I think maybe it's just using too much memory for the dinky little AWS VM I'm running it on, and I might need to move it to one with more memory, or run it locally on my PC.
Achievements:
Regalia: 1 XP for finding the Iron Circlet of Ghanor and returning it to Lady Alexia
XP:
- Exploration: 3 new rooms, 0 XP
- Loot: Lots, plus the reward for the Iron Circlet, 2 XP
- Achievements: 1 XP
- Total: 3 XP
Next Week:
They're going after the second Tablet of the Beacon, following Temrin's map from the Bastion to an unknown area.
