Date:
Basilsday 4th Lucrios, 2994 AE
Weather:
Warm, stormy
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:
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist
Cinna Minux, vampire
Brenna Three-Braids, vampire
Joshuel the Binder, vampire mage
Elliana, human thrall of Cinna Minux
Bestial varumani thrall of Cinna Minux
6 Ghouls
6 Chasm cephalopods
Roper
6 Shadows
The Plan:
- Kill the vampires
What Happened:
We resumed in mid-battle, with Cinna Minux and Brenna Three-Braids fleeing in gaseous form. The only opponents still fighting were Joshuel the vampire mage, Elliana the warrior thrall, and one random bestial varumani. Vallium and Uvash took Elliana and the varmuani down, and then Joshuel decided the odds were not in his favor and assumed gaseous form to flee.
Uvash still had Great Haste running, so he was able to keep up with the flying gaseous vampires for a while. Cinna, Brenna, and Joshuel split up and went three different ways. Uvash chased Brenna, and hit her several times with his pick, but in gaseous form she was diffuse and didn't take much damage. She eventually escaped up the spiral staircase, formerly guarded by ogres and varumani. Vael wanted to cast Trace on Cinna, but didn't have line of sight.
The Right for Riches company eventually gave up the chase. Vael case Seeker on Cinna, and got a vision of him resting in a sarcophagus, in a room full of stuff. He followed up with Trace, and found that the room was about 70 yards southeast. They headed south and east. One room contained six ghouls. They tried to ambush the party, but got chopped up.
After a lot of searching for secret doors in the direction where Cinna was, Vael tried Glass Wall, and saw that there was a fairly thin wall at the end of a dead-end corridor, leading to Cinna's room. Vael asked everyone else to step through a Teleport Rug, then Blinked through the wall, then dropped the Rug on the floor. The others came through immediately. Vael sensed that Cinna was in the ornate sarcophagus in the south end of the room. Uvash cast Protection from Evil on Vallium. Vallium took a Rudishva Pep Pill, and then Uvash and Vallium pulled the lid off the sarcophagus.
Cinna, apparently fully healed, sat up and immediately tried to Charm Vallium again, but the combination of Protection from Evil and Vallium's Luck let Vallium resist. Uvash and Vallium then started attacking Cinna. Cinna jumped out of the sarcophagus and started parrying most of the blows, but took a couple of hard ones. One lucky shot knocked Cinna unconscious, and it was all over. They took off his Imperial Field Plate armor, then Vallium held a stake near Cinna's heart while Uvash pounded it in. Deciding that wasn't enough, Vallium then cut off Cinna's head. Deciding that still wasn't enough, they dragged Cinna's body away from any treasure, took off all his remaining equipment, then Vael used Create Fire to incinerate it. Nobody was quite sure of the right way to kill a vampire, but staking plus decapitation plus immolation seemed good enough.
The room was full of treasures, including a magical bed, some fancy furniture, and several books. While Vael and Ioannes sat down to rest, Vallium and Uvash started carrying stuff out through the Rug. Both Vallium and Vael tried picking up Cinna's magical scimitar, but it shocked both of them, so Vael ended up using Apportation to take it without touching it again.
There was one locked door out of the room. Vallium tried his whole collection of keys, but none fit. Vael opened it with a Lockmaster spell, but behind the door was a huge pile of rubble, which started spilling into the room when they opened the door. Vael considered Shape Earth to remove the rubble, but it would have taken a lot of time, so they just left the rubble, and went out of the room the same way they came in, with the Rug and a Blink spell.
They went to the previously found room with two coffins, but the other vampires weren't there. Vael cast Earth to Air on the dirt in both coffins to try to make the area less hospitable to the vampires. They explored the rest of the previous vampire lair, and took the head of a Horus statue from the dining room. They also found a statue of Wadjet with a snake head. The snake bit Uvash and gave him a minor cut and Protection from Evil. Vallium and Ioannes both followed Uvash's lead and took minor cuts for protection spells, but Vael did not want to participate.
Next they went up the spiral stairs where Brenna had fled. They found a finished stone room but no sign of the vampire. A passage south led to a door south and passages east and west. They went west, and found a room with a couple of concentric circles on the floor. A door west led to a larger room. As Vallium crossed the center of the room, he felt a minor electric shock, not enough to hurt him. He warned the others, and Uvash cast Resist Lightning on everyone before they continued.
Another door to the west led to a cavern, with a chasm, crossed by a bridge. There were three skeletons on the ground, with some equipment including a magic rope. After looting the skeletons, they went south to some dead-end passages and found some more skeletons and a magic coffer, which they took. Going back north, they crossed the bridge, but halfway across they were ambushed by 6 chasm cephalopods. After a few seconds, four of the cephalopods were dead, and the last two floated back down into the chasm.
Vael announced that they should check out the chasm, so he and Vallium Levitated down. The chasm was about 50 to 60 feet deep, and they didn't find anything interesting in it. They did spot a rough passage heading east, so they used the Rug to bring the others over that way.
Vallium led the group east through a dry cave, and got ambushed by a roper hanging on the ceiling. It dropped toward him while extruding sticking tentacle ropes. He stabbed it, several times, hard, and it died. Vael remembered that the last roper they'd killed had had gems in its gullet, so Uvash and Vallium immediately started sawing the body apart. They found four gems and a whole lot of disgusting roper guts.
To the east of the cave was a finished passage, ending in a door. Beyond the door was a tomb, with a looted sarcophagus on the floor, labeled "Grenfell the Great." It looked like other tomb robbers had gotten there first, as there was no body nor any treasure. However, Vael used See Invisible and spotted a large bulge in the ceiling. Levitating up, he found an invisible sarcophagus there, with an ebony lid on the bottom. He tried opening the lid, but it was too heavy. He asked Vallium to come up and showed him where to grab and pull. Vallium did, and ripped the lid open. Everything in the sarcophagus -- a mummified corpse, two alabaster urns full of coins, a gold statuette, a magic helmet, a scroll, and two magic wands -- fell to the floor, with the urns and statuette breaking. However, that was a secondary concern, as the sarcophagus also contained six shadows. Three of them attacked Vallium, while the others attacked Vael, Uvash, and Ioannes.
The battle against the shadows took a long time, as they were diffuse and thus difficult to injure. Vallium and Uvash eventually each destroyed one. Vael declined to fight and instead Blinked away, then went over to Ioannes and cast Great Haste on him. Fast Ioannes then disengaged from his shadow and cast Affect Spirits on Uvash's pick and later Vallium's sword. The Affect Spirits spell made the shadows take full damage from attacks, and then the remaining shadows went down very quickly.
The group picked up all the coins that had spilled out of the broken urns, as well as the other treasure. Vallium cast a Repair spell on the bashed gold statuette, making it as good as new. They then retraced their steps back to the Beacon.
GM's Comments:
That was a lot of combat. There were six different fights: finishing up the fight against the vampire minions, the ghouls, Cinna Minux in his lair, the cephalopods, the roper, and the shadows.
Achievements:
None
XP:
- Exploration: 24 rooms (across 2 sessions), 2 XP
- Loot: Lots, and they sold enough for 2 XP
- Achievements: 0 XP
- Total: 4 XP
Next Week:
Vallium is unavailable, so they probably need to find a less violent plan. They found a book with pictures of the Regalia, so there was talk of trying to get Temrin to make more maps.
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