DFRPG Session 52a: Ichthelon and the Temple of Thoth

Date:

Basilsday, 22nd of Deuterios, 2994 AE

Weather:

Cool, fair

Player Characters:

Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)

Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)

Significant NPCs:

Freydis the Stern, Lady Alexia's steward

Lady Alexia Basileon, ruler of Gosterwick

Basil, Right for Riches employee
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI

Stamelis, Librarian Emeritus of Thoth

Dragonfly Automaton of Kerbog Khan, archmage

Many goblins

Remagis, priest of Thoth

2 Guardians of Thoth
Gribble, Chief of the Goblin Forum
Dworm, Goblin Forum guard and food merchant
Yoburra, Varmani ambassador to the Forum
Several wights
Many ghasts

Many ghouls

Stone Golem of Set
Several mummies
Ichthelon, mummy and priest of Thoth

Behir

The Plan:

• Give the (second) Tablet of the Beacon to Lady Alexia
• Bring food to the Goblin Forum
• Finish clearing the tombs southeast of the Goblin Forum
• Use See Secrets in the cleared tombs
• Explore west and south from the tombs

What Happened:

The Right for Riches company decided to return the second Tablet of the Beacon to Lady Alexia without disabling it first, but without giving her any documentation.  They resolved to go back to where they found it and destroy all the frescoes on the walls that gave clues about finding the Beacon.

They all walked over to the Azure Keep and told the footman they had something important for Lady Alexia.  He put them in a waiting room until Freydis arrived, and they told Freydis they had found another of the Lady's Regalia, so Freydis sent a page to get Lady Alexia herself.  Lady Alexia was impressed by the Tablet and let Vael show her which button turned it on.  She asked a lot of questions about where they found it and if they knew more about it.  They were honest about finding it in a secret room to the northwest of the bottom of the Great Chasm, but didn't share any secrets about the Rudishva or the Beacon.  Lady Alexia paid a large finders' fee for recovering her Tablet, and also paid for the ebony box it came in, and for both signet rings inscribed "MT", which she thought might actually have belonged to Archon Marius Tricotor, based on where they were found.

With the reward in hand, they returned to the Arcane Practitioners' Club, where Ioannes cast Bless spells on Vael and Vallium then had his power item recharged.  They then went through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon, where Basil awaited.  Basil suggested moving the purple Teleport Rug to Akla-Chah's room to simplify communication, and the company agreed.  Stamelis asked if he could be taken to the Temple of Thoth to check on Remagis, and the group agreed, though Vael asked Stamelis to keep the secret of the Beacon.

Everyone went through the Rudishva teleporter to the Secure Treasury, through the Cloister, then through the secret passage to the slime room with the hole leading up to the cavern near the Temple of Set.  At that point both clerics stepped through the Rug, and Vael and Vallium Levitated up.  As they emerged from a secret door into the cavern, they spotted and were spotted by a clockwork dragonfly construct.  The dragonfly flew up to them, and a human-ish voice identifying himself as Kerbog Khan spoke to them.  He congratulated them for finding that secret door, which he had not previously known about.  He mentioned that he was an archmage and could sell information or spells or even teleportation, but all deals must be sealed in blood.  Vael tested Kerbog Khan's knowledge by speaking in Rudishva, and Kerbog Khan seemed to understand it.

When the dragonfly departed, they put the Teleport Rug down so the clerics could rejoin the party, then everyone went south through the Temple of Set, then east to the Temple of Thoth.  There Remagis had done quite a bit of restoration work.  He warned them not to enter without a holy symbol of Thoth, as the newly awakened Ibis Guardians of Thoth were somewhat hostile to those without one.  The goblin guards handed them some cheap wooden Guest Holy Symbols to brandish, while Remagis showed them around.  The pool that had formerly contained a Slime Kraken, then cloudy disgusting liquid, now seemed to hold pure clean water, and Remagis said it had healing properties.  He had worked out a deal with Bottleneck and the goblins of Upper Goblintown, exchanging healing for food.

Remagis and Stamelis started conversing in a secret Thothian language, that Vael was able to understand because of the Rudishvan Command Bracelet's translation ability.  Remagis said he didn't know where the statue's eyes were, and asked if Stamelis knew.  Stamelis did not.  Vael cast Seeker for the location of the eyes, and detected that they were in one of the formerly crocodile-infested pools in the Temple of Set.  He followed up with Trace to track the exact location, then the group doubled back to get the gems.  Vael pointed to the correct spot, and Vallium dove in to grab a leather bag.  Vael opened it up, revealing two huge sapphires.  He pulled one out to get a better look and received a minor shock.  After a brief discussion, the group decided to give the gems to Remagis rather than selling them.

Returning to the Temple of Thoth, Vael gave the bag with the eye sapphires to Remagis, who was overjoyed.  He tried climbing the statue to replace the gems, but it was a difficult climb.  Vael cast Flight on Remagis, who flew up and replaced the eyes.  At that point all of the clerics felt like the sanctity level of the temple had increased.

The group went back west through the Temple of Set, then down the Sighing Stair to the Goblin Forum.  They had a brief discussion with Gribble, who said that he would assign one of the rooms for their use, before goblins claimed them all.  They then spoke with Dworm, who said the food was still selling, some to goblins and mostly to Varumani.  They then went to talk with the Varumani ambassadors.  This time Yoburra had one of his assistants deal with them.  Asked if they needed more food, they said yes.  Asked if they had a preference, the Varumani said they liked goat.  The group went back to their newly assigned room, then took a purple Teleport Rug back to the Beacon and a green Teleport Rug back to Gosterwick, and bought a live goat at the Grain Hall.  They carried the goat back through the Teleport Rugs to the Forum, where one of the goblin food merchants immediately offered to buy it, but the Varumani outbid him.  The Varumani put the goat in an unused room and closed the door, saying a runner would be summoned to take it to Varumani territory soon.

The group went south from the Forum into, then east to the room labeled "Dead Inside."  The door was, surprisingly, unlocked.  They headed east, then north, and found a bunch of sarcophagi and a huge black stone statue of a Set animal, with a white marble head, golden ears and snout, and lapis eyes, holding a golden ankh and a silver flail.  Uvash cast Sense Spirits looking for undead in the sarcophagi, and didn't find any.  The group explored east past a bunch of burial niches.  They found another group of sarcophagi, and again Uvash cast Sense Spirits.  This time he registered some mummies and wights inside some sarcophagi, and a bunch of ghouls and ghasts hiding behind sarcophagi.  As he warned the others, the undead jumped out and attacked.

A long battle began.  Vallium waded into a swarm of undead, hacking them down, then occasionally using the combination of Boots of Levitation and the Ring of Free Action to pop out of the swarm and get them all on one side of him.  Uvash fought several more, and eventually got surrounded.  Vael cast Wall of Lightning around Uvash and the ghouls and ghasts, then used Blink Other to pop Uvash outside the wall, leaving the undead trapped there.  Eventually, all of them tried breaking through the Wall and got severely shocked.  Uvash also managed to knock a couple of ghouls back into the lightning for extra damage.  There were enough ghouls that some broke through to Ioannes, who killed a couple.  Vael Blinked away from the ones that attacked him, and eventually used Larel's Cloak to become invisible.

As the fight continued, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps from the west.  Eventually, the Set animal statue they had seen earlier entered their light radius, now animated and hostile.  Vallium and Uvash engaged it, as it swung its flail.  The statue was quite tough, but several blows from Vallium's armor-piercing sword eventually took it down.

With all the visible undead finished, Uvash cast Sense Spirits again so they could mark exactly which sarcophagi contained undead.  One had two mummies, another had one mummy, and another had a wight.  The group formed up by each sarcophagus with weapons ready, then had Vael used Apportation to pop off the lid, then quickly attacked the supine and not fully awake inhabitants.  This was very effective.  Once all the undead were finished off, they set to looting all the sarcophagi and putting all the treasure into Larel's Sack, then, when that was full, took it back to the Beacon, using the purple Teleport Rug.

Vallium noted some runes on the Set statue's leg.  Vael took a close look and determined that there were four runes and that they could be arranged in various orders.  He tried a random order, and the statue gave him the gift of being able to zap people once per hour.  Unfortunately the gift was not optional, and Vael felt compelled to zap someone.  With no enemies nearby, he tried zapping an inanimate object, but that wasn't good enough and he ended up zapping himself.  Ioannes healed him.  Vael also picked up the statue's magical flail, which shocked him.  Ioannes healed him again, and Vael used Apportation to pick up both the flail and the ankh without touching them.  He took them back to the Beacon through the Rug, and warned Basil not to touch them.

The group went back west to the burial niches, and looted those as well.  They then returned to the first group of sarcophagi and also emptied those.  They went south to the group of sarcophagi they had found but not completely looted a few weeks before, and found that someone else had completed the looting.  All the southern sarcophagi and burial niches were empty.

They continued southwest to the sarcophagus that was chained shut, that they had determined contained some kind of undead.  The occupant heard them and started scratching and pounding on the lid and asking to be let out.  Vael used Lockmaster to unlock both chains, and they warily removed the lid.  Inside was a mummy, but this one did not attack.  He said his name was Ichthelon, and that he was a priest of Thoth who the Settites had kidnapped, used for some horrible ritual, and imprisoned in the sarcophagus.

After some discussion they decided to disguise Ichthelon to make it not so obvious that he was a mummy, then take him to the Temple of Thoth and let Remagis and Stamelis deal with him.  On the way out of the tomb, they removed the "X" on the floor and the "dead inside" sign, noting that the area was now safe for goblins.

Wanting to explore a bit more, the group headed back down to the Forum, and went south again.  They bypassed a spiked-shut door on the west of the hallway, deciding it might contain something dangerous that they didn't have time for today.  They went all the way south to the Red Bridge of Set.  There, both clerics went through the Rug, and Vallium and Vael Levitated west to the edge of the chasm, then northwest to a previously unexplored area.  There was a pool of clear water there.  Vallium swam around in it a bit, but didn't find anything.  They followed a passage north.  North from there was a room containing many giant rats, so they didn't go that way.  West was a cavern holding many bodies, mostly rats, some other creatures.  East then south was a very misty cave.

Suddenly, out of the mist came a huge cone of lightning.  A critical hit on the party!  Everyone except Vael had their Luck, so everyone except Vael averted the critical hit.  Vael was injured, but not too badly.  The group decided to flee.  They all ran west and south, with Vallium acting as rear guard.  The creature responsible for the lightning attack emerged from the mist.  It was a behir, a huge multi-legged draconic beast, and it breathed lightning again, hitting everyone except Ioannes, who was fully around the corner.  This time, it failed to achieve complete surprise, so everyone partially dodged the cone of lightning.

At that point we were out of time, so we paused in mid-combat.

GM's Comments:

The big fight against many ghouls and ghasts took a while, but both Vallium and Uvash have heavy enough armor that ghouls and ghasts have a hard time hurting them, so it wasn't actually very challenging.  The Set statue was more challenging, but there was only one of it, and it didn't reach them until the undead were mostly finished off.  Using Sense Spirits to find exactly which sarcophagi contained undead made defeating those ones pretty easy.

The PCs had heard that Lella and the Rippers had a map to a tomb, and later that they had made a big score and sold some of the treasure to the merchants in the Forum, but now they know which tomb that map led to.

The players pressed their luck, trying to explore a few new rooms at the very end of the session, and got a fight they didn't want.  Fortunately the behir rolled poor damage on its surprise breath attack, and nobody failed their stun check.

Achievements:

None

XP:

None, stopped in the dungeon.

Next Week:

They plan to fight the behir, search for treasure, and go back to Gosterwick.  They would like to spend a day identifying treasure and fixing Vael's Gift from Set, then continue clearing the area south of the Forum.  If they clear a path all the way to the baskets on the cliff face, they would next scry some Thothian teleporters.  Finally, they would like to return to the Cloister area and make sure they got all the loot, since Kerbog Khan's dragonflies would probably be exploring there.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 51: The Vengeance Aspect

Date:

Basilsday, 15th 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)

Significant NPCs:

Basil, Right for Riches employee

Remagis, un-petrified ancient Thothian priest

Two tenebrous worms

Three Imperial stone guardians

Several feral cats

Vengeance Aspect

Many ghouls

Several chasm cephalopods

3 Wights

3 Ogres

Many goblins

Gribble, Chief of the Goblin Forum

Dworm, Goblin Forum guard and food merchant

Galadnor, Half-Elven merchant

Yoburra, Varmani ambassador to the Forum

Bottleneck, Goblin sergeant of the Glory of Weskenim

The Plan:

• Travel to the Rudishva Bastion using the Rudishva teleporter in the Beacon
• Travel north from the Bastion along the floor of the Great Chasm, following Temrin's map
• Recover the second Tablet of the Beacon
• Clear more rooms near the Goblin Forum

What Happened:

Vael took Remagis to Gosterwick, where he could practice his broken Archontean on various shopkeepers.  Vael gave Remagis some spending money, which he spent on holy water, cleaning supplies, food, and several simple wooden holy symbols of Thoth.

The Right for Riches company gathered in the Beacon, then used the Rudishva Teleporter to the Bastion, using Salamander Amulets to walk through the fire trap unharmed, then using Teleportation Rugs to bring the people without Salamander Amulets through.  The group walked to the entrance to the Beacon, where Vael used the black command card and the Rudishva command console to open the secret door and set the Rudishva Point Defense Arrays to "don't shoot anyone with a Rudishva ID" mode.  Everyone went out through the secret door, and Vael used Apportation on the big red button to close the door behind them.

Vael cast Shape Earth to open a hole from the cave leading to the Bastion into the wider Great Chasm floor.  He cast Bracteros Effect on a Continual Light rock to render its light invisible to those far away, and then the group hiked  north.  They scrambled down from a plateau to a natural floor, into the western edge of a giant mushroom grove.

There they were ambushed by two tenebrous worms.  The worms failed to achieve ambush, and Vallium and Uvash hacked the worms apart, while Vael and Ioannes stayed back.  The worms' poisonous spikes didn't manage to hurt anyone.  Uvash was curious as to the nature of the poison, but not enough to risk taking a sample.

The group continued north and saw a raised pediment, with a couple of ballistae sticking over the edge.  They warily climbed some stairs up to the pediment, and were charged by three Imperial stone guardians, like the ones that had been guarding the Beacon.  Once again, Vallium and Uvash fought the enemies, while Vael and Ioannes hung back.  There was a fourth stone guardian that was intact and appeared magical but was completely inert.  The group decided to leave it alone.

Exploring the pediment, they found a few other sets of stairs down to the cavern floor, and an Archontean teleportation circle in the northwest corner.  They also found a crack in the western wall leading to a natural passage, as Temrin's map indicated.

The passage opened into a long room with the ceiling supported by columns.  There were many old, burned corpses scattered around the floor.  One corpse looked newer than the others, and had some magical mail armor and a pouch.  The group quickly looted that corpse, then they followed their map and went through a door to the north.

Beyond the door was a passage narrow enough to require squeezing through.  It led to a room, which contained a sand table with some lead toy soldiers.  Under the sand table was a chessboard and a lacquered box containing some fancy Archontean chess pieces.  There was a huge fresco of Marius Trocotor and some of his comrades along one wall, and a pile of cloth in one corner.  The cloth started moving.  Vael used a Whirlwind spell to blow the cloth away, and a pile of cats emerged from the cloth, ran in random directions, and hid.

After taking everything that looked valuable, they searched for a secret door on the western wall where the map said to go, and found one, but it required a one-inch rod to open.  Vael reached into Larel's Sack and produced a rod of the right diameter.  This revealed a narrow passage, ending in another similar secret door that opened the same way.

Beyond the secret passage was a room containing a camp bed, a simple desk, and a fancy ebony box on a pedestal.  The box contained a Tablet of the Beacon, identical to the one they had previously found in the Bastion.  It also contained an ancient Archontean instruction manual for the Tablet, though this didn't have any information they hadn't already figured out.  There was a fresco on the wall showing three obelisks and a hole opening in the ground.  Once again the group saw that this helped them solve a puzzle they had already solved.  Rifling through the desk found a couple of gold signet rings with the initials "MT", several historical books about various Archons, and a list of twenty Thothian teleportation addresses and the rooms they led to.

After taking everything that looked valuable and portable, the group doubled back.  When they reached the room with all the corpses, they saw a ghostlike figure with short hair.  It was a Vengeance Aspect, a particularly terrifying type of ghost.  The ghost started pointing at corpses, which became ghouls.  It then pointed at the party and blinded all of them.  This began a long fight, which was made more difficult by nobody being able to see.  The ghost threw some fire bolts at the party, but three of them were wearing Salamander Amulets and Vallium was wearing a lot of armor, so they weren't as effective as they could have been.  It also summoned a Symbol of Death on the floor, which ended up killing a ghoul rather than a PC.  Vael managed to drop a Dispel Magic on Vallium, which dispelled the blindness on him and let him fight more effectively.  Vael tried several more Dispels but failed to make anyone else not blind.  He did manage a lot of collateral damage, taking out his own Levitation (leading to a fortunately very short fall), Continual Light, Bracteros Effect, and Bless.  Vallium killed several ghouls, and Uvash killed a couple.  While blind, Ioannes managed to cast Affect Spirits on Vallium's sword, which let him injure the ghost.  The ghost was still hard to hit due to its spectral quickness, but Vallium eventually managed a solid hit to slow it, then a few more hits to kill it.  When the ghost was destroyed, all the ghouls collapsed to the floor and everyone could see again.

Ioannes healed Vallium, and then everyone searched all the corpses, finding nothing.  The group explored west, finding a corridor that sloped up.  They went back and explored to the south, finding a room with an altar of Sekhmet, with a blazing magical flame.  In front of the altar was a charred corpse wearing Imperial field plate, with a longsword at its feet.  There were several other charred lumps in the room, each with some ancient gold and silver coins nearby.  After looting everything they could find, the group explored a few other nearby rooms, finding some minor treasure.  They then searched for secret doors and failed to find any.

With the area looted to their satisfaction, the group took the ramp up to the west, which led to a small chasm.  Vallium flew out using his Boots of Levitation to explore it, and was attacked by several chasm cephalopods.  He quickly killed one, and the others decided that this was not an easy meal, and flew away.

The chasm had several exits, with one to the south leading to a room featuring three plain sarcophagi.  Vallium flew back to the group, and they used the Teleporation Rugs to ferry the non-flying party members back to the Beacon, then brought them back out on the other side of the chasm.  Everyone was suspicious of the sarcophagi.  Uvash cast Sense Spirits looking for undead, and found a wight in each sarcophagus, waiting in ambush.  He tried Turn Zombie to terrify the wights.  The wights emerged, then started running to the south.  Vallium cut two of them down, and a third one escaped.

Meanwhile, some ogres appeared from the south, having heard the combat.  One ogre started ringing a cowbell.  Not wanting a protracted fight, the group retreated back to the room with the sarcophagi, where Vallium slammed the door and Vael Wizard Locked it. They then looted the sarcophagi, and headed back north across the chasm, then back down to the room where they had fought the ghost.

They decided to use the teleportation circle to return to the Forum of Set.  Vael flipped through the book of teleporter addresses and found one led to the Bridge of Set.  They used that permutation of glass activation squares (black-red-blue-white-yellow-green) and were teleported to an area just south of the Red Bridge of Set.

The group crossed the Red Bridge.  Their footsteps echoed loudly as they crossed it, but there were no Settite guards left alive to respond.  On the north side of the bridge was a plaque with a riddle, and a red force field preventing passage.  Vael ignored the riddle and spammed Dispel Magic spells at the force field.  The first two tries failed, but the third attempt was a critical success, and the force field went away, opening the path to the Goblin Forum.

They hiked north, where the goblin guards recognized them and let them into the Forum.  Dworm told them the last week's food had sold, again mostly to the Varumani.  Galadnor told them that some adventurers had some through buying and selling, after looting a tomb.  One of the things they had found and sold to her was a deed to a house in the faraway capital, Archontos.  Vallium wasn't sure whether it was still valid, but bought it anyway.

Vael met with Yoburra and the other Varumani ambassadors again, then went through a Teleport Rug back to the Beacon, then through the other Rug to Gosterwick to buy another load of food for Dworm to sell.  Remagis helped carry food, and asked if he could come through the Rug to the Temple of Thoth.  Vael said it was fine as long as he promised not to reveal any of their secrets.  Gribble said that the Temple was Bottleneck's territory, not his, but he was fine with Remagis going there if Bottleneck didn't mind.  They took Remagis up the stairs, through the Temple of Set, then through the passages to the Temple of Thoth.  After introducing him to Bottleneck, the Right for Riches Company returned to the Beacon.

After identifying all the loot, Vael cast a Repair spell on the ancient and somewhat decayed Imperial Field Plate, and somehow managed to botch the spell and completely destroy the armor.  Oops.

GM's Comments:

The Vengeance Aspect was nasty, with its blindness and Symbol of Death and fire attacks and ability to raise lots of ghouls.  The combination of Salamander Amulets, Dispel Magic, Affect Spirits, and Vallium and Uvash having enough armor to be mostly ghoul-proof carried the battle.  Dispel Magic is a rather blunt instrument though, as it tries to dispel all the magic, not just the magic you want gone.

The book of teleporter addresses was a welcome find.  The party has been discussing trying all the permutations of addresses for a long time, but having a directory should save them some time and effort.

Achievements:

Regalia: 1 XP for bringing the Tablet of the Beacon to Lady Alexia

XP:

• Exploration: 12 new locations, 1 XP
• Loot: a pretty good amount, plus the reward for the Tablet, 1-2 XP depending on what they sell
• Achievements: 1 XP
• Total: 3-4 XP

Next Week:

They're going to try to clear more rooms around the Goblin Forum, opening it up for easier and safer commerce.

DFRPG Arden Vul Session 50: The Iron Circlet of Ghanor

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)

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.