Date: 1/21/2018
Attending:
Jake, Justin, Dave, Joey, Wes, Aaron
Absent: None
Start Time: 7:45
p.m.
After
resting the party starts the new day (on the second floor of the ruined temple)
with a discussion about whether or not to release the earth elemental upstairs.
The decision is (eventually) made to do so, and Soromir, Oranthal, Osbert,
Jace, and Ostar troop upstairs to do the deed leaving Khalo,
Born-Under-Red-Sky, Norris, and Old Jarl hanging out on the second floor next
to the stairs to the first level. Upon entering the room at the top of the
temple – where the crystals, ark, etc… are – Oranthal gets a wild hair (totally
not metagaming, he could write a book about all his in character reasons I’m
sure) to examine the altar and take the now empty sack that the Djinn gifted
the party.
The altar is
unremarkable and nothing of note is found about it (DM’s Note: there was
nothing of note to find. I only mentioned it in the last blog because it was
odd to me that after diligently examining everything the party omitted some
obvious things. Not all things omitted were noted by me, and not everything I
did note had relevance or value, such as the altar). The sack proves to be
magical (surprise!).
Soromir
breaks the crystal containing the earth elemental, releasing it (with party
support, unlike before). The elemental
lumbers out of the room, seemingly ignoring the party. It heads down to the
second floor. Khalo hears its footsteps and sees it enter coming straight for
him. Realizing he is standing between it and the stairs down, Khalo at first
refuses to move (“It can step around me. I’m not moving for it”) then catching
on that there is no room for it to go around him he grudgingly moves a scant 5
foot square aside. Unfortunately the elemental is a 10x10 creature and Khalo is
shoved aside as it enters the stairs (Rudely? Mindlessly? You be the judge).
Angered, Khalo casts entangle on the staircase, trapping the elemental in a
tangle of magical vines. The elemental responds by smashing the stairs,
collapsing the whole staircase to the ground floor. As soon as it touches stone
in contact with earth it sinks into the floor.
Feeling the
crash of the stairs collapsing, the party members upstairs hurry down to see
what is going on. Soromir in particular is concerned and asks what happened. At
first Khalo lies about what occurred, but after Old Jarl and Norris tattle on
him he stubbornly admits to what happened leading to the following exchange
(slight paraphrasing on my part):
Khalo - “He
pushed me. What do you expect?”
Soromir –
“He was held captive for years and just trying to leave. You didn’t need to
attack him!”
Khalo – “He
pushed me.”
Oranthal –
“It’s mindless Khalo. It was just leaving.”
Soromir –
“It didn’t hurt you. There was no need to escalate to an attack!”
Khalo – “So
if someone pushes you, you don’t think it demands retaliation?”
Soromir –
“No!”
Khalo –
(gives Soromir a hard shove.)
At that
point Soromir goes for his sword, and Osbert and Jace step in to try and defuse
the situation. After some heated words, the party clams down a bit. A new
discussion is had about some respective “triggers” and all note that Osbert is
never down with extra-planar evil and Soromir has real issues with slavery.
(DM’s Note for the readers at home: both triggers were pre-determined by the
players in their character’s pre-game backstory, and Khalo has a charisma of 6,
which informed Joey’s roleplay of Khalo. Everyone is doing a fine job of
roleplaying their characters, it’s just that in doing so thus far “teamwork”
has been a little more elusive than normal. I’m sure they are each planning
fantastic character arcs wherein their characters discover the magic of
friendship, culminating in a display that would put any episode of Sesame
Street to shame and forging a band of brothers that works like a well-oiled
machine. In the meantime however, there was no need for me as a DM for about
1/3 of this session. Not a lament, just an observation. It was entertaining though.)
Since there
is no staircase they end up having to climb vines down to the first floor.
Born-Under-Red-Sky takes a fall and is seriously injured. He, Norris, and Old
Jarl are left behind in the receiving room (wherein the centipedes were fought
previously) while the rest of the party heads to explore the staircase leading
down to the basement level.
The basement
is a large open room that was once used as a kitchen/food preparation area. The
far wall is lined with pantry doors, a skeleton lies in one corner, the remains
of a stove/chimney apparatus is along one wall, the far corner has a sturdy
door still hale despite the passage of time, and a large grub about 3 feet long
is aimlessly rooting about in the collapsed remains of a large table in the
center of the room. The grub ignores the party. Over the course of the next 30
minutes of conversation and actions various party members approach the grub and
raise weapons to kill it but never actually strike; the grub survives. As far
as anyone can tell the grub doesn’t care either way.
Examining
the skeleton first, the party sees that it is very old and most of its gear
long since rotted away. Oranthal sees a book at its feet, but it disintegrates
at his touch, leaving only one page behind. They find more of the triangular
coins, a wand, and notice that it is wearing bracers that still seem in good
condition, like new. The book page proves to be the last entry in a journal
which Oranthal reads aloud to the party (see Blog Post: Demos Temple Journal).
They take this opportunity to use the wand of identify on several items (sack,
bracers, both wands, etc…). They then discuss the information revealed in the
journal. After a flurry of skill checks no one seems to know anything about the
Uthdar Monks or their religion, and most of the discussion turns to the
illusionary wall and its possible location.
They head
upstairs again, up to the third floor and conduct a thorough examination of the
room with the broken crystals, wooden ark, and altar (the altar gets cast down
onto the floor during). No illusionary wall is found. They head downstairs to
the second level and enter the portion of the ruins where they fought the
beetles. Beyond is the room with the summoning circle that Osbert destroyed.
Realizing that they never actually searched this room or asked Ostar to examine
it, they begin to search the room. 5 seconds later Jace’s hand goes right
through a “wall”; clearly an illusion. Beyond is a small room where the tree
that grows through the building is located, and a door leading to a small
study. The study only has a desk and a cushioned stool. Ostar finds that the
stool has a hidden compartment. Within are two arcane scrolls, two divine
scrolls, and a limited amount of spell components (one of which is a diamond
valued at 1,000 gp, which is arguably treasure). Having discovered the
illusionary wall and its secrets they troop back down to the basement to continue
exploring.
Opening each
of the 5 pantries/storage closets they find old foodstuffs and rotting linens.
The last one however is much more interesting. The back wall is open, and
masonry stones litter the floor as if something on the other side forced its
way into the pantry. Beyond is a smooth natural tunnel, a stark contrast to the
careful stonework of the ruins. Stepping through they find a natural cavern
about 15 foot in diameter with a dead body, with a tunnel that leads out and
away from the ruined temple.
This corpse
is much more recent than the skeleton in the basement. Oranthal examines it and
is very confident that he died between 6 and 12 months ago. He was human, and
is wear black leather armor with a mottled brown and green snake design on the
chest. He also has a scimitar, light x-bow, 20 quarrels in a quiver, and a
pouch with 31 gp of Guardius mint. He is clutching a crumpled piece of paper in
his hand. No one can identify the snake
symbol for certain, but Jace is sure that it is religious in natural and while
there are many snake/serpent cults, none of them are good. They then discuss
the contents of the note (see Blog Post: Demos Cultist Note), but give it much
less time (presumably to digest its contents a little more, to be addressed
later).
They retreat
back and open the final door in the temple basement. It is locked, and Ostar goes about picking
it. In doing so he springs an old trap. Thankfully the trap fails, but Ostar
understands how close he just came to death and is visibly shaken. Khalo and
Osbert offer comment that it is clear Ostar takes as unsympathetic to say the
least. Steeling himself and with a noticeable coolness in his manner (well
Oranthal noticed if no one else did, I saw it in Justin’s face) Ostar unlocks
the door. Beyond is a tight, 4 foot wide 7 foot tall tunnel, constructed in the
same stonework as the temple. The party heads down it. Ostar refuses to lead,
and in response Osbert asks for his bracelet (the item Ostar has cast his light
spell on). Again Ostar takes umbrage and refuses, stating that plenty of light
is given off from his new position as 2nd in line. Osbert chooses
not to argue the point and the party walks. After 30 minutes with no end in
sight to the hallway they stop and return to the ruined temple. Reuniting with
Born-Under-Red-Sky (now healed by Norris), Old Jarl, and Norris they ask Old
Jarl’s advice on where to focus next. They all talk it out and then choose to
return to the hallway and explore it first, with the intent of exploring the
natural tunnels after.
Back in the
hallway (Norris now providing the light) they walk for over 2 hours when they
start to notice a steep uphill grade to the hallway. Another 45 minutes of
walking and they arrive at a door, twin to the one that opened onto the hall.
Two levers are mounted in the wall; Ostar determines that one unlocks the door
and the other disarms a trap on the other side.
They throw
the levers and open the door, revealing what looks like a wall of a tannish papery
material. Osbert punches a hole in it and sees that it is a tube made of the
stuff, about 4 foot long and 3 foot in diameter. Crawling in they are in a room
covered in the papery material, with the walls covered with tubes. About 1/3 of
the tubes are filled and have a translucent membrane stretched over the
opening; behind the membrane small movements can be seen. An ancient ladder
leads up to a trapdoor in the ceiling.
Osbert
climbs the ladder to see another room covered in paper. The trapdoor is on the
floor in the open position and has been papered over. Osbert begins to hack at
it attempting to free the door. Attracted by the noise a giant wasp crawls into
the room. Osbert immediately charges. Several party members climb up and help
engage the wasp, but it proves to be a tough opponent. Osbert in particular
soaks up a lot of punishment before the wasp falls. Another wasp crawls in
after just as quickly as the first falls and the party opts for a tactical
retreat. Oranthal uses a spell to free the trap door, closes it after Osbert’s unconscious
body is hauled in. Ostar runs forward and covers Oranthal’s retreat from the
trapdoor with a burning hands spell. The papery surroundings do not burn easy,
but the old ladder goes up and the whole party falls back to the hallway from
the temple, shutting the door and pulling the levers behind them.
End of
Session
300 XP; 50
to Wes for blogging
No comments:
Post a Comment