Date:
Tothsday 11th Ligarios, 2994 AE
Weather:
Warm, cloudy
Player Characters:
Vael Sunshadow, Half-Elven mage (Kyle)
Vallium Halcyon, Archontean fighter (Greybrown)
Uvash Edzuson, Dwarven cleric of Zodarrim (Cosmo)Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)The GOAT, Imperial Goblin Mercenary Druid (Archon Shiva)
Ioannes Grammatikos Byzantios, Archontean cleric of Demma (Demented Avenger)
The GOAT, Imperial Goblin Mercenary Druid (Archon Shiva)
Significant NPCs:
Lady Alexia Basileon, ruler of Gosterwick
Basil, Right for Riches employee
Akla-Chah, Rudishva AI psychologist
Watcher Nataraja
Tuftwillig, oak tree
Dalton Erdell, leader of Dalton's Darlings adventuring company
Jason, Helga, Haliagabilus, Jost, Isidor, Yvette; Dalton's Darlings
Lankios, ancient warrior
Summoned goats, sharks, manta ray, bats, bears, elephant
Many chasm cephalopods
Many lacedons
Giant constrictor snake
Several piercers
Corbel, Milo, Phoebe, child automata of Kerbog Khan
Giant space squid
The Plan:
- Demolish the Tower of Scrutiny
- Ask GOAT to tell Tuftwillig that Craas has been killed and the Tower of Scrutiny destroyed
- Re-attach the hands to the statue of Vul and cast Analyze Magic on it
- Start re-building the statue of Arden
- Search the land and water of the surface ruins of Arden Vul, using Seek Earth and Seek Magic
- Go back behind the waterfall and explore using See Secrets
What Happened:
Lady Alexia asked for an audience with the Right for Riches company. When they came to the Azure Keep, she explained that she had heard they were trying to sell dragon parts, and wondered if they'd actually killed Craastonistorex. They confirmed that they had. She asked if the dragon had had any of her Regalia. They said he had not. She dismissed them to continue their search, but mentioned that, with the dragon gone, her Azure Knights might start patrolling the ruins.
They hired the GOAT at the Grudge Brigade, then went through a Teleport Rug from the Arcane Practitioners' Club to the Beacon. After a quick chat with Basil and Akla-Chah, they headed for the Rudishva teleporter to the Cloister. On the way, they noticed the dust ionizer robot was inert and no longer cleaning. Ignoring the hygiene emergency, they continued to the teleporter, then took another Rudishva teleporter from the Secure Vault to near the Engine Room. As they entered the Engine Room, the Watcher Nataraja challenged them, but Vael waved his yellow Rudishva security plaque at it, and it backed away into a corner.
They went west into the former vampire lair, and took the Thothian teleportation circle there to the palace ruins on the surface. From the ruins they walked over to the statue of Vul, where they figured out which hand went on which side, then held them in place while Vael cast two Repair spells to seamlessly reattach the statue's hands. The statue appeared magical, so Vael cast Analyze Magic. All it told him was that the statue was somehow connected to the bridge to the east.
They went east to the bridge, where Vael cast another Analyze Magic spell. It revealed that the bridge held some kind of enhancement magic, but not how it worked. They decided to research that more in the future. They crossed the bridge to the Forum, where they saw Dalton and a few of his Darlings coming out of a ruined building. A brief conversation ensued, consisting mostly of Ioannes bragging about killing the dragon and calling Dalton a tribute-paying wuss. Dalton avoided taking the bait and asked if they were keeping the dragon's tower. Ioannes said they were, but Dalton said that was fine, the Darlings had claimed the nearby basement and were rooming with Lankios, who was now an honorary Darling. Dalton asked what they had done to avoid paying tribute to the goblins, and Ioannes explained about killing all the halflings and Settites for the goblins. Dalton said they were headed to Gosterwick for supplies, and asked if the Right for Riches company knew about the Arden-Vator. Vael said they did, but had not yet tried it. Dalton led them that way, and Haliagabilus over-enunciated the command word, which was the old Mithric version of Arden's name, Ardenesia. This cased the hand of the giant Arden statue to start sliding down the side of the Cliff Face, carrying the Darlings along with it.
With Dalton and friends gone, the Right for Riches company went back north to the Forum, then around the back of the Tower of Scrutiny. Vallium pulled out his Tower of Scrutiny keyring, and used one key to open the outer secret door, then another key to open the inner secret door. They explored the Tower for a while, looking for any treasure they had missed. They didn't spot any, but Vael cast Seek Magic, which led them to a cask in the basement. Ioannes used See Secrets to point out a hidden compartment in the cask, which contained a bunch of gold solidi and a magical treasures.
Vael had noticed that the outer walls of the Tower were enchanted, so tried Analyze Magic to see what they were. He detected some kind of protective enchantment, which might explain why the Tower was one of the few large structures in Arden Vul that was still mostly intact. They circled around to the front door, which they had never opened. Vallium found the correct key, but even after unlocking the physical lock, the door was still magically locked. Vael's Dispel Magic spell failed, so he dropped all the other spells he was maintaining and tried again, and managed to dispel the magical lock. That enabled them to go outside without walking all the way back to the secret door.
GOAT cast Speak to Plants and started a conversation with Tuftwillig. He explained that these guys had killed the dragon. The tree indicated that killing the dragon was pretty good and worthy of thanks, but that Tower was really messing up his morning sun. GOAT cast Levitation, flew high above the Tower, then cast Create Animal to summon an Itrhuin elephant. The elephant appeared in mid-air and silently dropped onto the roof of the Tower, doing surprisingly little damage to the Tower. (It did fatal damage to the elephant.) After deciding the Tower was too tough for elephant drops, GOAT flew back down to the tree, and explained that the Tower was hard to knock down. Tuftwillig relented and said that there was a piece of statuary itching his northeastern roots, and they could take it. Vael cast Seek Magic to precisely locate the object, then Shape Earth to dig a hole. Vallium and Uvash pulled out the left hand of the statue of Arden. It was small enough to shove into a Bag of Holding. Vael refilled the hole.
Vallium suggested recovering the other pieces of the statue that they knew about. They went down the stairs into Lankios's basement, where they ran into three more members of Dalton's Darlings: Jason, Isidor, and Yvette. The bodies that had previously been on the floor had been cleared away, and the left leg of the Arden statue was no longer there. Yvette explained that Dalton's Darlings had claimed that piece of the statue, along with a couple others they had found. Vallium said that they had found them first, but not taken them. Yvette said that she could not speak for Dalton, but that the Darlings would want a share in the finished statue in return for their pieces. Vallium said that would be fine, though nobody actually knew what the statue would do so it was all speculative. Lankios came in and greeted the visitors and asked if anyone wanted any stew. The visitors politely ate some, and managed to hold it down.
Vallium led the group to the northeast, to a sludgy healing pool. He started to dump a Potion of True Water in the sludge, but Uvash told him to wait to give him a chance to drink some of the sludge. After Uvash finished, Vallium dumped the potion, which caused the sludge to become clear water. Vallium spotted a bronze key in the water, and dove in to grab it. The group then headed northwest to a Thothian teleportation circle.
After some discussion, they teleported near the Red Bridge of Set, intending to finish clearing the behir lair. As they went over the Red Bridge, someone noted that they had never explored the bottom of the chasm. GOAT summoned a bat swarm and sent it down into the chasm, reporting that there was water at the bottom. Vael cast Walk on Air on Uvash and Ioannes, and then everyone went down into the chasm. There they were surrounded and attacked by many chasm cephalopods. The cephalopods killed about half the bats in the swarm, but Vallium and Uvash killed several of them in return, and the rest decided to flee and seek easier meals.
Continuing to the bottom of the chasm, GOAT cast Water Vision and announced there were a bunch of creepy undead guys under the water, plus some kind of weird gate. Vallium went back up to the Red Bridge, dropped a Teleport Rug, went back to the Beacon, and grabbed two Helms of Underwater Action from a chest. As they decided who would wear the helmets, GOAT summoned a shark and sent it after the undead. It killed several of them, before the survivors paralyzed and killed it. GOAT summoned another shark. The undead were more prepared this time, but it killed a couple more. GOAT switched things up and summoned a manta ray, which killed the last couple of undead. With the undead gone, Vael and Ioannes put on the Helms and Uvash put on the Ring of Water Breathing and they started searching under water for loot. Vael cast Scry Gate on the gate and saw that it led to an underground river. Nobody went through the gate. Intstead, Vael cast Mage Sight to look for magic items and scooped up a few from the bottom. One magic torch looked suspiciously like one that had stuck to his hand, so he picked it up with Apportation rather than touching it. Meanwhile Uvash and Ioannes swam around scooping up coins and other valuable items. They found a broken lever, so Vallium and Vael Levitated up to the room above the chasm with the three levers, reattached the lever with a Repair spell, then tried all the combinations of lever settings. This caused another poison gas attack, foiled by Vael's Rudishva helmet, and another wall of fire, foiled by Vael just Levitating outside away from it.
Deciding they were done with the chasm and the lever room, the group went over to the behir caves. They started exploring ruined rooms, looking for treasure. They found a lot of images involving Set and giant snakes. Right on cue, a giant constrictor snake surprised Ioannes and decided to squish him, but Vael cast Blink Other to free Ioannes, and then Vallium stabbed the snake to death, and skinned it for good measure. They found an emerald inside the snake, and a few other interesting items nearby, including some blue dragonskin boots. Continuing through the behir caves, they found a lot of giant rats (which fled), and a few more small treasures.
Heading south, they found a room with a lot of stalactites. GOAT summoned a goat to run around under all the stalactites in case there were any piercers. There were none. Continuing south, they spotted two child automata like the ones they had met in Kerbog Khan's lair. One was skewered by a piercer and the other was trying and failing to help. They entered the room to talk to the automata and another piercer fell from the ceiling directly at Ioannes' skull, and was about to split it in half, when Ioannes' Bless intervened and deflected the piercer a couple of feet to the side. Vallium stabbed it. Realizing he was now in a piercer-infested dungeon with no Bless, Ioannes asked Uvash to Bless him. Uvash began a long speech about Zodarrim keeping Ioannes safe, while Vael and Vallium looked for more piercers, and Vallium Levitated up to the ceiling and killed a couple.
With the Ioannes re-Blessed and the piercer menace avoided, they spoke to the surviving automaton. She said her name was Corbel and her sibling's name was Cobban. They had run away from their evil father, Kerbog Khan, but then this monster had fallen from the ceiling and impaled Cobban. Vael used a Repair spell to fix Cobban, but this did not re-animate the construct. Vallium revealed that Kerbog Khan was dead, and there were two others like them back in his lair. Corbel said those were Milo and Phoebe, and they were too scared to run away with them. Vallium asked if they'd like to go get Milo and Phoebe, and Corbel said okay, and that she knew the way back.
Corbel pointed the way north, to a passage sloping steeply down. This led to the level of Kerbog Khan's lair, near the Rudishva medical pod. Vallium said that they'd never finished searching the medical pod and they should do that now. They went back to the room where they had destroyed the surgical bot, and Vael used Glass Wall to look through the doors north and south. North was an empty chamber. South was a chamber holding a sleeping giant space squid. Vallium mentioned that one of the Rudishva data crystals had featured a Rudishva and the space squid. They decided not to go in and wake it up. They explored some more and found some Rudishva medical supplies (including a bottle of the Rudishva Pep Pills), as well as a Rudishva screen labeled "property of Kerbog Khan."
They left the medical pod, flew over the underground river, and went back to Kerbog Khan's lair. They found Milo and Phoebe still hiding in the privy, where they had left them weeks before. Corbel talked the others into coming with her. Vallium went through the Teleport Rug to the Beacon but moved the Rugs from Akla-Chah's lounge to the entryway, so the constructs wouldn't see as much. The others then came through the Rugs to join Vallium in the Beacon. Finally, Vael picked up the Rug and cast Pol's Recall to teleport to the Bridge.
GM's Comments:
This session was much calmer than the previous one. They fixed the Vul statue, talked to people and constructs and a tree, and did some exploring. Ioannes survived attacks by a giant constrictor snake and a piercer. GOAT callously abused more summoned animals in ways that would get him kicked out of most druidic circles. They found three "living" child constructs and one "dead" one.
XP:
- Exploration: 12 new locations, 1 XP
- Loot: A surprising amount in the Tower of Scrutiny and the Chasm of Set, probably 2 XP
- Achievements: 0 XP
- Total: Probably 3 XP
Next Week:
They plan to take the Arden-Vator up to Arden Vul, and Vallium wants to sing the Song of Arden at the big Arden statue. They will see if anything has changed in the surface ruins since Craas died. They will cast Scry Gate to see if anything has changed in the Lady's Asylum. If so, they will re-explore that area. Vael will contact Basil Choumnos with a Message spell to inquire about whether they can use his teleporter to Archontos in a couple of weeks, and they will meet with Choumnos if needed. Finally, they will explore the Drowned Canyon.
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