Date:
Basilsday, 22nd of Deuterios through Lunday 23rd 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)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Sister Valya "Basilisk", mercenary Halfling clerid
Significant NPCs:
Behir
Lurker Above
Gribble, Prince of the Goblin Forum
Many goblins
Dragonfly Construct
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Remagis, Priest of Thoth
Ichthelon, Mummy of Thoth
Stamelis, Head Librarian of Thoth
Vivian, Chief Priest of Demma in Gosterwick
Gray Ooze
Many Bestial varumani
Surgical Construct
2 Invisible Stalkers
Gevorda, captured Varumani
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI
Gorlen, Varumani lift operator
2 Varumani lift laborers
The Plan:
- Kill the behir
- Take any treasure it has
- Give the key to the cleared tomb to Gribble's keymaster
- Go back to Gosterwick and get Set's Curse removed from Vael
- Recruit a mercenary
- Go to the Rudishva Cloister and clear or secure the area
- Clear more of the area near the behir
- Scry some teleporters
What Happened:
The group gave up on outrunning the behir and turned to fight. Vallium stabbed it very hard several times. Uvash hit it too. Eventually the behir decided to retreat back into its electrified mist, but it was too late, and it went down with its head still outside the mist. Vallium tried dragging the body out of the mist, but it was far too heavy. Eventually he ventured into the mist, and felt a mild shock, but wasn't actually hurt. He commenced skinning the behir. That took a long time. Vael cast Seek Magic and detected something magical inside the behir. Vallium went back into the misty cave and cut the behir's guts open, looking for whatever magic Vael had spotted. He came up with a magic gem and spotted several other gems while he was in there. At that point he decided that where there are several gems there might be more, and spent an hour completely cutting the behir's digestive system apart. That disgusting job found a few dozen more gems, plus a fancy comb and a ring.
Vael cast Seek Magic again and said there was more magic a few yards south. Vael followed Vallium into the misty cave, where the electrical shocks were now less severe. He spotted the source of the magic, a small golden statue of a camel. They took that, searched the cave a bit more, and found nothing else.
They went back west to the cave full of (mostly) giant rat corpses, which they assumed was the behir's pantry. They sorted through the disgusting mess but didn't find any treasure. Vael cast Seek Magic again and spotted something south of the electrified misty cave. After some circling around they found an old skeleton in corroded red mail, and a magical mace and a pouch full of coins. They looted it. They found a rough passage heading down and followed it to an area they had previously explored, south of the Cloister. Having connected their maps, they went back up.
Heading through a worked room leading back to the Red Bridge of Set, a Lurker Above hidden on the ceiling decided to drop on Vael and then constrict him. This was fairly effective, gravely wounding Vael but not quite killing him. Vallium and Uvash started hacking at the creature to try to kill it without hitting the part with a wizard-sized bulge. Ioannes tried to blindly heal Vael through the creature enveloping him. Vael was still just conscious enough to cast a Blink spell, and blindly teleported himself out of the creature. He ended up about three yards to the south, and immediately passed out. Vallium and Uvash hacked the Lurker Above to bits, then Ioannes and Uvash healed Vael. Remembering the behir, Vallium cut the Lurker Above apart, and was rewarded with a small, corroded coronet inside its gullet.
Both clerics stepped through the Teleport Rug, then Vael and Vallium Levitated over the chasm to the Red Bridge. They put the Rug back down so the clerics could rejoin them, and everyone walked back north. They stopped back at the tomb they had looted before, where Vallium decided to cut the marble and gold and lapis head off the Set animal statue they had destroyed. It took three tries, and each time Vallium got a lightning bolt for his trouble, but none of them hurt him very badly, and eventually the head was severed. It was over 300 pounds, but Vallium was strong enough to roll it onto the Teleport Rug, then deadlift it and say the command word while holding it, then roll it across the floor of the Beacon while telling Basil to stay away from it because it might shoot lightning bolts.
With the tomb's last known treasure secured, they went back to the Goblin Forum and gave a key to the tomb to Gribble's keymaster. They then headed up the stairs to the old Temple of Set, then headed to the caves north of the temple, but looked carefully for spies before taking their secret route to the Cloister. Sure enough, they found a dragonfly construct hovering in one of the northern lobes of the cavern, watching them. They decided not to take their usual route, and instead doubled back through the Temple of Set to the Temple of Thoth. Vael asked Ichthelon if he could remove the Settite curse, but Ichthelon said that sadly his clerical abilities had not yet returned and he had not yet received an answer from Thoth. They went back through the Temple of Set, back down to the Forum, and back south to the behir caves. There they used the newly discovered route down, and then navigated north and west through a few Rudishva iris doors to reach the Cloister without passing the dragonfly construct. From the cloister they went to the Secure Treasury and used the Rudishva teleporter there to return to the Beacon.
From the Beacon they used a Teleport Rug to return to Gosterwick, where Ioannes immediately took Vael to the Temple of Demma to get a Remove Curse. Vivian, the chief priest, perhaps noting Vael's extremely expensive robes, noted that the Pillar of the Community Level Donation for Remove Curse had increased to $1000, and that this money would be used to help dozens of poor children. Vael whined while paying the money, and Vivian removed the curse, so Vael was no longer compelled to zap someone (or himself) every hour.
After a day of resting and identifying some of the loot they had taken from the tomb and the behir, the group decided to head back to Arden Vul. They visited the Grudge Bridage headquarters and hired Basilisk, the halfling cleric. They went back through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon then through the Rudishva teleporter to the Cloister. They re-searched the whole cloister area, wanting to make sure they didn't miss any loot, in case Kerbog Khan's dragonfly spies got in and found something they'd missed.
In the auditorium room, Vael found a previously unseen button on the arm of the central chair, which caused images to appear on view screens around the room. The first image was some kind of underground pyramid, with amphibian creatures with spears standing on it. The second image was a large underground Rudishva chamber containing two very large and vaguely draconic-looking pieces of equipment, one in the center of the room and another off to one side. The room also contained a man-sized spherical construct, levitating around. The third image was another Rudishva chamber, this one containing several vertical coffins, some of them broken open, others with creatures apparently inside, but with details impossible to see. He found a couple of other less interesting buttons. One controlled some lights, and the other amplified his voice.
In the library room, they had already taken everything small, but there were still a couple of large GnuCoder data readers, which were powered off and inoperable. They were too large to lift or move through a Teleport Rug, so they left them. Vael used a charge on the Wand of See Secrets then dashed around the whole Cloister area again looking for secret doors, but didn't find any beyond the one they already knew about. They left the Cloister thorough the secret door, then went north and east to a room they hadn't explored before. They found it has two exits, a passage leading down to the northwest and another passage leading down to the southeast.
They took the passage down to the northwest. After a long descent, they ended up in a cave with a scary amphibian statue and three exits: east, west past the statue, and up to the northeast. In front of the statue was a fresh human body, with a pouch. They looted the pouch of some coins and a scroll. They explored east and found the passage ended at a huge chasm. Far down and south they spotted a brightly lit garden hanging in the chasm, so they realized this was the Great Chasm. Back to the west, they found a room with a pool containing some thrashing multi-colored slimes. They gave the slimes a wide berth and contined south, but were ambushed by a gray ooze. The ooze didn't survive long, but it corroded Vallium's and Uvash's weapons a bit. Vael wanted to take a sample of ooze, so he borrowed Ioannes's surgical kit, put some ooze in a glass vial, then cast Repair to fix the damage to the kit.
Further south they heard some rough grunting in Varumani. They advanced toward it, with Vallium brandishing their Varumani passport. A large number of varumani gathered, most of them naked and unarmed, one with a huge club. The one with the club looked briefly at the passport then told everyone to attack. The group didn't want a war with the varumani, so they defended themselves but avoided offensive action. Sister Valya stunned the leader and another aggressive varumani in the front with Kiai shouts, and then everyone withdrew to the north while the varumani were confused. The varumani did not follow them into the room recently occupied by the gray ooze.
The gray ooze room had another exit, a passage sloping down that both Vael and Uvash noted as incredibly well dug. The passage was a perfect circle, like something that would be found in a dwarven palace, not in a random cavern. The passage went down a long way. There was a crack in one side leading to a (less perfect) side passage sloping up, and then the passage led into a Rudishva-architecture room, containing many triple bunk beds.
They searched the room, but it contained only the bunk beds and some empty cabinets. There was an iris door on the far wall. After a lot of discussion, they decided to advance through the iris door. This led to a Rudishva hallway. There was a passage to the right, a closed iris door ahead, and a propped half-open iris door to the left. Through the open door was a strange room, with an unconscious varumani strapped to a table and surrounded by some kind of semi-transparent gel, a construct with multiple arms leaning over the varumani, and a couple of high-tech varumani consoles.
After a few attempts to speak to the varumani and the construct, they entered the room, at which point Vallium was ambushed by two invisible stalkers. Sadly for the invisible stalkers, his armor was mostly impervious to their attacks. A fight began, with Vallium and Uvash fighting creatures they couldn't see but which couldn't really hurt them. Sister Valya, whose bat familiar gave her sonar, could make out the outlines of the stalkers well enough to kiai stun them, while Vael cast See Invisible on Vallium and Uvash. Vallium and Uvash then started hitting the stalkers much more effectively, while Vael piled on with Create Fire to singe a stunned Stalker. At some point the surgical construct decided to join the fray and tried to stab Vallium in the eye with a needle, but Vallium parried the attack, then started smashing the construct. After a bit, both stalkers were dismissed and the construct was broken.
Vael looked at the consoles to try to see what was happening with the varumani. He was able to read a few Rudishva glyphs, then called Akla-Chah on the command bracelet to try to get her input. She said that she was a psychologist, not a surgeon, but that, based on classes she had taken and hospital-themed holographic entertainment she had viewed, this sounded like a surgery chamber, and the gel around the Rudishva was probably medicaderm, which Rudishva used to prevent infections during surgery. Vael and Akla-Chah discussed the glyphs on the consoles, and decided that one console controlled the chambers beyond iris doors to the north and south, and the other dealt with the equipment in this room. There were two buttons referring to permeability, so Vael tried one, and then was able to push his staff through the gel and contact the varumani. He unstrapped the varumani, and then Vallium pulled the varumani off the table and set her on the floor.
Sister Valya cast Awaken on the varumani, who instantly woke up and then said she needed to kill the Khan. Some questions revealed that her name was Gevorda, and that she had come to make a deal with the Khan, but he had instead knocked her unconscious with a spell and kidnapped her and had his disgusting construct do medical experiments on her without her consent, so now she had to kill him. Vael said that sounded like a good idea but maybe she should slow down and plan. Gevorda reluctantly agreed that, since the Khan was an archmage, she should probably find another sword and some more armor before she killed him. She asked them to show her the way back to Varumani territory so she could re-equip. They described the hostile varumani they had met, but Gevorda said those sounded like renegades, not proper Thegn-following varumani, and recommended staying away from them. She asked to instead be taken to proper varumani territory, or the varumani lifts that led to it. They agreed, but asked if she knew the Thegn and if she could put in a good word with him for rescuing her. She said that of course she knew the Thegn, all proper respectable varumani knew the Thegn. While Vael talked to Gevorda, Vallium grabbed the wrecked construct and carried it through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon.
They all headed back up the suspiciously perfect passage, then north and east to the Great Chasm. There Vael told Gevorda that he could cast a Flight spell on her, but it would only last a minute, so she should fly straight to the floating garden. Gevorda agreed. She tested the Flight for a few seconds in the passage, then leapt out into the cavern and flew toward the floating garden. But then she unexpectedly veered to the west side of the cavern. Vael and Vallium, moving more slowly with Levitation, eventually caught up with her there. She was at a varumani lift station, talking to the operator of the lift, telling him to lend her his sword and armor because she didn't want to show up in Varumani territory naked and unequipped. He operator eventually agreed and started taking off his armor. After she put it on and strapped on his greatsword, she got on the varumani lift (without paying) and the varumani laborers turned the winches to lower her to the varumani level.
At that point the company decided to retrace their path back to the Cloister, then took the teleporter back to the Beacon. When they got there Vael decided to play with more of the Rudishva equipment they had discovered, and managed to figure out how to work a Rudishva dart thrower without hurting himself or anyone else.
GM's Comments:
There was a fortune in gems hidden inside the behir's digestive system, and the group never would have found them except that one of them was magical and Seek Magic found it. Some goblin butcher almost got very rich.
It was amusing that after they spent months looking for a varumani passport, the second group of varumani who saw it did not respect it at all and attacked them anyway.
Things seem to be escalating quickly with Kerbog Khan, from "we don't want his dragonfly spies finding our base" to "it appears he kidnaps varumani and does medical experiments on them without permission."
Achievements:
The rescuers: 1 XP for rescuing Gevorda from the surgical construct
XP:
- Exploration: 12 new locations in the first session, 8 in the second, 2 XP total
- Loot: Lots in the first session, little in the second. Probably 2 XP total.
- Achievements: 1 XP
- Total: Probably 5 XP
Next Week:
They're planning to fight the renegade varumani who didn't respect their passport. Then they will explore that area, then more of the Rudishva area around the surgical bay. If time remains they'll explore more around the behir caves, and maybe test some teleporters.
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