Session #18: {Game clock resumes at 5:00:30pm, 03/19/3200}
Just as they are starting to get their thoughts around all
this new information, they hear the skitter and scratch of toe-nails upon the
stone floor. It is something relatively
large, and it is moving in their direction
at great speed. Milo and Dwight
are near the front of the party, so they brace for conflict while Thingerlun
bemoans the fact that he has no powerful spells left for the day. There is a rawring squealing noise as a rat
the size of a small pony comes into view as it passes into Milo’s aura of
light. It is galloping at them and they
are surprised to see fear in its eyes, a fear that crystalizes into hate as the
rat sees something to vent its fear upon.
It leaps at them using its momentum to carry it into the group of
humans; but halfway through the leap, it shifts form into something that isn’t
quite rat… but it isn’t an ogre either.
This thing has spikes running down its spine, and huge claws and barrels
into Dwight, knocking him over.
Dwight ignites the spirit of fire within his sword as he
attacks the thing from a prone position.
The fire causes the rat-thing to back off and Dwight slices the creature
as he stands. Milo and Aerin fail to hit the thing, and Thingerlun (still
riding high on the extra spell energy from summoning his patron) manages to
cast his enlarge spell backwards; causing the rat-thing to drop to the size of
a normal human. Pat tries to hit it with
both of her swords, but misses and hits the wall hard enough to send sparks
from her blade… a normal blade would have shattered.
Hearn manages to command the creature to “Calm!” While Bob
sneaks off to investigate the tomb.
The rat, unaccustomed to both its new size and general state
of tranquility failed to strike anyone, and Dwight nearly cleaves the beast in
twain with his next strike, and it falls dead at his feet. No one has noticed that the Ditch Digger has
gone missing, and they begin to debate what to do next…
Meanwhile… in a tomb near you…
Bob finds that there is a short stretch of hallway with an
ornate archway carved with ribbons and runes, many of which have been blotted
out by vile substances and unguents, or in one case scratched into a new and
darker rune of some kind. Bob uses his
torch to see what is beyond the ornate archway.
He sees that the door has been shattered and beyond that is a medium
sized room, maybe 50ft long and a little more than half of that in width. Most of the floor is missing and reveals that
all but a small ledge and dais on the far side was actually a deep pit filled
with needle sharp spikes. Each of the
spikes was more than chest height; everything seems to be made of one colossal
brick of silver, seamlessly constructed or carved into shape. Everything except for the clay urn sitting
upon the pedestal 30ft away. He digs out
his rope and grappling-hook, but looking over the situation he figures that
he’d knock the thing over… and it might be important. As luck would have it, there was a decorative
feature on the wall behind and off to his left that would work just as
well. He nails it on the first try, but
seems to have forgotten every knot he ever learned.
Out in the hall…
The discussion is centered on how little time Milo has left
until sunset, and how best to search that much area. They decide to press further into the tunnels
hoping to find whatever creature killed the necromancer; hoping this is the
dark/evil/nasty thing that Milo is supposed to kill. That is when they notice two things: 1- that
their Ditch Digger isn’t there to
check the tunnel for traps, and 2- that the mines have become silent except for
the sounds they are making. That is when
they hear the cackling laughter from somewhere in the dark in front of
them. They are torn about what to do
next, they don’t want to abandon the Ditch Digger, but cackling is never a good
sign, and they remain fixed to the spot by their indecision.
…While cakling in the dark is bad enough, you know things
have gone from bad to worse when the voice in the darkness starts talking to
you …
“Well, well… what do we have here? A stalwart group of nascent heroes
perchance?” Cooed a female voice; “I
could use a few new henchmen. Some new
blood in the echelon, maybe?” Giggling
insanely at her joke. “Together we could
terrorize the mortals and rule them like sheep!”
Hearn left the monolog to go looking for Bob, but finds
nothing. It is about this same time when
Bob figured out his knot problem and secured the rope to what was left of the
door, and was going across the rope.
Choosing to hang beneath the rope and use hands and legs to keep hold on
the rope, he managed to make it over to the dais in one piece, though his pack
got snagged a couple of times when the rope stretched a bit in the middle. He discovers that there is a plank on this
side that can be set up as a bridge, and that there are quite a few runes
etched into the urn and the dais. He
decides to set up the bridge and go get the wizard. It is Bob’s calling out to the rest of the
group that allows Thingerlun to find the passage into the tomb.
Dwight turns to Milo; “You’re the undead hunter, what are
these things.”
Milo; “Vampires. Sunshine
is the best remedy for them, but I’ve got some holy water that’ll act like
acid. Hacking them to pieces, or a wooden stake in the heart are the best
options we’ve got.”
Dwight, bitterly; “I don’t suppose you could pull some
sunshine out of your arse?”
Milo, remembering what Hearn had told him of the topaz gem
the thorne had given to them; “Well, now that you mention it... Maybe I can…”
Aerin, “And what would you give to us? What is it you want of us?”
Laughing, the female voice continues; “You could be my
general or my next meal; that is after you tell me all that I wish to
know. My bold little boy.” There was a new sound, the clicking sound of
high heeled boots on stone moving slowly towards them.
Pat shoots an arrow blindly down the hall, but fails to hit
anything.
Meanwhile an impromptu archeology conference has broken out
between Bob and Thingerlun as they examine the urn. Thingerlun inspects the runes on the dais and
the general construction of the room, and then brings the urn back to the
antechamber of the tomb.
Out in the hall…
A slender woman in a shiny silver robe steps boldly into the
light and sweeps her gaze across the party of adventurers. Aerin falls under the sway of the woman’s
charming visage, and Pat nearly does so as well but manages to shrug off the
effect. {Burned a point of luck to make
the save.} the robed woman smiles and to
Aerin she says: “Kill them.” Milo and
Dwight are undaunted by this attack and
Thingerlun and Bob are arriving at their grand conclusion
when Hearn sticks her head into the tomb and tells them to get out her and
help.
Bob, “But I think this might actually be important!”
Hearn, exasperated and stepping into the antechamber with
them; “There is something nasty heading our way; I think it would be best if we
were all together.” And they all head
back into the hallway to see Milo praying over the dead rat-thing, just to make
sure it was going to stay dead… Pat and Dwight leaping over the body and
swinging their weapons fiercely; Pat hitting the woman and slicing deeply.
Just for a moment, the woman in silver looked confused, as
if such impudence from her victims was unthinkable. Then she swept her gaze across the party
again, while Aerin worked himself up into a powerful frenzy. This time Pat wasn’t so lucky and she fell
under the sway of the vampires charm ability.
Bob leaves the jar with the wizard and goes to the corps,
and moves it out of the way and Hearn steps forward and shouting in a
commanding voice: “OBEY!” and invoked enough power to emphasize the fact that
she was the one to be obeyed by pointing to herself… and the vampire failed her
save. {It doesn’t matter how many bonuses the vampire wizard has… a 2 on the
die just won’t get the job done.
Especially when the player rolls a natural 20, totaling to 23, on the
spell check for the word of command spell.}
Without a command, Pat stands there dumbfounded.
Thingerlun opens the jar and tells Hearn to command the
vampire into the jar as Aerin screams and charges towards Milo. Milo whips out the Eye of Night and invokes it’s once per day power to radiate true
sunlight, it will only last for 20 seconds, but it should be enough to do some
serious damage. The vampire stands there
like a mannequin waiting for a command, with its flesh and hair starting to
char and puff into ashes.
Dwight takes advantage of the situation and starts hacking
away at the vampire while it burns, the purple flames of his sword adding to
the crisping doom for the vampire. In a
flash of insight, Milo connects the topaz gem to one of the lines in the
prophecy: now he knows that it is the capstone to the Rod of Heaven.
Bob distracts Aerin while Hearn commands the vampire back
into the jar, and the vampire poofs into a smoldering smoky cloud and streams
into the jar. Thingerlun closes the lid
and the seals begin to glow. Milo is
visited be an immediate sense of approval from his God, as does Hearn, for
finding a way to even show mercy to the dead.
The light fades back to just the lantern and the light from
Milo’s aura. The charms and compulsions
they were under fade away.
{Game clock advances to 6pm}
They “Dial-a-Gnome” as they call it, and ask if he has heard
from Hank yet, and find out that Hank and the rest are still in transit out of
the dungeon, but that he’ll head back as soon as he is done. Bob manages to find the hidden control panel
that will let them bring the elevator down, and they head up into the control
room where they decide to set a double watch and camp for the next 12
hours. During the wee hours of morning
while Milo and Dwight are taking the last 4hour shift, they hear scrabbling and
scratching coming from the elevator shaft.
Milo leans over and sees that there appear to be a half dozen
goblin-vampires crawling their way up to attack. He leans back and tells Dwight casually, and
then brings out the topaz again and flash-fries them. Then he casually puts the gem back into his
belt pouch and lets everyone sleep.
When the rest wake up, they find that Hank has arrived and
he takes possession of the jar while the rest of them debate about how to
proceed, and it is eventually decided that they should do a sweep of the last
level of the mine, just to make sure they won’t be letting anything escape.
They head back down into the 4th level of the
mine, conscious of the fact that they might need to split the party in order to
keep a guard on the only exit out. They
decide that Bob, Milo, Dwight, and Pat should be the explorers, but when they
get to the illusory entrance to the tomb Bob insists on checking it out
again. That is when they discover that
there is another secret door that would let folks into the tomb from another
direction and that both doors are not illusions: they are one-way secret
passages. The only reason they have been
able to move in and out freely is that somehow the necromancer bypassed this
effect, but when the necromancer died, his toes were still in the way… keeping
the passage open. They pull the body out
and hope that nothing else can get out or through from the other side of the
tomb.
They continue down the only passage they have available to
the north, until they come to a junction that heads west, and quickly branches
north again while the tunnel continues on to the west. They split the group here, and as they are
heading west they notice a door on the southern side of the hall. There inspection reveals that it is unlocked,
and not trapped, but there are no sounds on the other side. With stealth, Pat and Bob open the door and
see a large room with bunk-beds in that have about 30 sleeping and sickly
goblins. There are two more doors out of
this room; one on the south wall and on their right hand side, near the other
door on the east wall. They decide to
start stealthily killing the goblins in their sleep. Milo joins in and there is a general slaughter,
and they are all thankful that they won’t have to explain it to Hearn. {Game
clock suspended at 8am; 02/20/3200}
No comments:
Post a Comment