February 19th, 2017

One Session, Two Adventure Locations

The Adventures in The Halls Of Wandering, The Way Home, and The Return to the Hidden Citadel

The Proving Grounds Adventure, from my left:

Nick playing Merrick the human fighter and increasingly furious chop-o-matic

Catherine playing Ydee the half-elven thief and tired mercenary

Chris playing Valandil the elven spellsword and enhancing cutting machine

Sarai playing Desorna the elven fighter and for once not paralyzed hackbot

Hunter playing Strix the elven magic-user and stumbling grungemaiden

Zack playing Ahri the elven magic-user and chaotic spellmage

And the DM making some decisions for Nilo's halfling cleric and frustrated healbot Arden.

The adventure as usual began in Ivy's room. The difference was that Strix was in such bad condition after her near death experience that she was going to be less useful than usual. But the party had the bear token and were determined to get through the door and hopefully earn the ribbon for this test, so they continued, with Strix being bodily hauled along for the most part.

Returning down to the twin doors of bear and frog, the bear token was used to open the bear door revealing a 10'x10' room with a lever on the opposite wall. Merrick pulled the lever and heard a faint clunk noise as he did so, but nothing else seemed to happen. Frustrated, the fighter went and tested the frog door and found that it would open now. Opening the frog door revealed an identical room to the one behind the bear door with a level in the west wall. Pulling that lever, Merrick heard a clunking noise, but nothing else seemed to have changed. Merrick was growing more frustrated when Ydee noticed a bit of color appearing above the throat guard of his armor. On closer inspection it was discovered that an orange ribbon circled Merrick's neck, meaning that they had the second of the ribbons. This suiting their plans, they prepared to leave the Proving Grounds and return home before being stuck there for a month on short rations.

After having a few minor encounters along the way out, including the spell point thieving intellect devourer, the party detoured at Arden's insistence to visit the fountain room. The fountain was running, so those who were wounded drank and healed up some before exiting. The hill giant that was waiting in the exit room was a concern, and though Strix managed to distract it momentarily with some words in giantish, battle was joined. Arden spent time between healing the elven fighter and casting bless before his spell points were exhausted. Between the various members of the party enough damage was finally dealt to drop the giant and leave the Proving Grounds.

After teleporting back out of the tower top late in the evening, the party struggled all the way back home with their weakened party member arriving well after closing at the inn. The group all searched for appropriate places to curl up for the rest of the night, though Valandil did go and awaken the bard Darvin at the inn. Since she was exhausted from a late night doing what bards do, she just told him to return in the morning and she'd speak to him then when she was awake enough to remember any of it. In the meantime Merrick, who was still carrying the brightly glowing head of the dead hill giant, was stopped by the guards and taken in for questioning. The head was confiscated and the fighter fined for bringing it into town.

For the next three weeks in town the party stayed busy. Strix had to spend many days in bed rest before she was able to go and get trained, and the remainder of the group had to find ways of paying for their training so they could advance. Merrick and Desorna spent their free hours when not training for three weeks helping train neophytes at the fighting school to help defray their training costs. Valandil paid to get both his fighting and magical training accomplished, and Ydee improved her skills too. The pure spellcasters spent their time improving their skills, and Ahri gained access to third level spells! Lightning bolt entered her spellbook and the party worried slightly more.

Also during this week the greatest tragedy of Strix's sad life happened as she was charmed by Ahri and forcibly washed by the other female elves and had her filthy, dirty rags burned and a new, clean, white robe issued to her. Also, her matted and horrid dreadlocks were shaved off leaving her much cleaner and nicer looking but horribly sad. And, even worse, her old friend dirt seemed to avoid her now.

Experience for the final day in the Proving Grounds: 930 for most of the party and 465 for Arden.

Return to the Hidden Citadel, from my left:

Nick playing the human fighter Merrick and his wondrous happy-making sword

Chris playing the human fighter Deckard Stormfallow recently arrived to the party

Sarai playing the elven fighter Desorna who doesn't want to deal with more stupid puzzles

Hunter playing the elven magic-user Strix, newly clean and shorn and HATING IT

Zack playing the elven magic-user Ahri, ready to launch a lightning bolt at something, dammit

and by divine fiat, the DM playing both Catherine's half-elven thief Ydee and Nilo's halfling cleric Arden when he felt like it.

During the three weeks several other events happened, the summation of which involves Valandil sharing information with Quervin through the druid's agent Darvin and getting some information back. After this, Valandil decided to stay and work with the bard to try to learn more information while the rest of the party took on one of the neophyte fighters that Merrick and Desorna had been training and return to the Hidden Citadel of Roghan and Zelligar to try to explore it further in a less dangerous environment for the young fighter.

The trip back to Twinlake Vale was easy enough, and the party arrived in good order a week later. After some visits to places around town the curio shop was investigated. Inside Merrick discovered a magical bastard sword was for sale for the rock bottom price of 500 gold pieces. Trading in the magical +1 short sword that Ydee had LOANED him lowered the price, and by expending almost all his resources the fighter was able to acquire the weapon, which made him very happy as power thrummed through him as he held it. Once he had taken possession of it, Ahri had the chance to identify it and discovered that it was a +2 Sword of Cursed Berserking. Merrick thought this was fine and kept it.

Leaving Twinlake to travel to the Citadel took them another three days, but soon they were there and began showing their new companion around. They quickly introduced the young fighter to the bloated festering plague zombies in the form of four ex-humans. As their explorations continued they encountered more of the original ogre plague zombies and the neophyte learned to hate them, and to be happy he was a ranged fighter instead of in close and risking being splattered with their putrid innards when they exploded upon dying.
One battle against bugbears was won before the inevitable happened and Merrick failed his discipline saving throw against the curse. He almost hit Ahri with his first attack, which might have killed the mage dead, but luckily before he got a second attack the cleric was able to hit him with a hold person spell. While Arden and Desorna were carefully getting the sword away from him, the others were tying him up and using Ahri's manacles to connect one of his wrists to the opposite ankle behind his back. Arden and Desorna went off to try to get rid of the sword where it would never be found again, and the rest stayed with Merrick to try to subdue him when the hold spell wore off. When Merrick was able to move, he fought his way free and was extra grumpy but calmer after some effort was made. Once Arden and Desorna returned after their mission, the party continued onward in their quest to try to find their way into Roghan's rooms.

The party spent large amounts of time trying to figure out how the other locked doors were to be opened and ran around throwing the required levers and just in time in one case. The corpsegrinder that attacked them failed to paralyze Desorna, a first for that, and they managed to kill it with Merrick now using the normal silver-bladed battle axe that Desorna had loaned him. After much effort the party figured out that the odd pattern on the paper that they had found many adventures ago was the key, and that pressing the globes in the first keyroom in the proper order was the way to light the globes and open the lock in the second keyroom. Once the second door was opened they entered the chambers of Roghan the fighter.

The first room was a huge 50'x50' practice room filled with practice weapons, shields, and targets. Nothing in here was of much interest, but a thorough search revealed a secret door in each of the east and south walls to go along with the door in the western wall. When opened the eastern secret door seemed to lead back to the halls around the Doom of Zelligar room, so it was ignored for the southern secret door. An extended search of it showed no way to open it, so it was theorized that it was used as a one-way door. The western door was opened and entered as the only option left.

The room beyond was a largish sitting room with another door in the south wall. Shelves on the west wall held foot tall figures of warriors and knights in heroic poses, perhaps trophies from years and battles long ago. The center of the room contained a large round table with chairs and a couple of decks of cards sitting on it. One quick exploration later, the party headed south.

The south door led into a room that caused all the fighters' eyes to light up. It was filled with trophies of weapons, armor, and shields displayed all around the room. Arden used his detect magic spell and discovered that there were plenty of magical items around. Though most of them were of low power, it was still a windfall for the non-magic-users. Magical leather armor was found for Ydee as well as a magical broad sword, a magical bastard sword went to Merrick and Arden gained both a magical horseman's mace and a magical footman's flail. An unusual set of scale mail was identified as magical Scale Mail of the Black Drake which with some refitting the new fighter could wear. Desorna claimed a +1 shield and a second one was set aside for whoever could use it best. Another door in the east wall seemed to beckon to them, and the party went through it.

This door led into the bedchamber of Roghan and apparently his lady, as the headboard had a R & M engraved on it. Several very nice pieces of a woman's silvered hair comb/brush set were found, along with several simple silver pieces of jewelry. None of these items was magical, but the detect magic spell Arden cast did reveal a hidden magical something behind the books of poetry on the southern wall. Behind these books Desorna found a small box containing a pair of rings which detected as magical. Strix tore the sheets off of the bed and began trying to turn them into a new set of raggedy clothing, and the rest of the party decided to rest for the night in this relatively safe room.

Experience for this second part of the adventure: 325 for Ydee and Arden, 650 for everyone else.