February 26th, 2017
Something Odd Is Happening Here. . .
The
Exploration of the Hidden Citadel
The
Proving Grounds Adventure, from my left:
Nick playing Rowena, gnome mystic and latest to be astounded by this party
Chris playing Deckard Stormfallow, human fighter and future dual class threat
Sarai playing Desorna, elven fighter and mapping maven
Hunter playing Strix, elven magic-user and miserable paragon of cleanliness
Zack playing Ahri, elven magic-user and random spellcaster
And, by divine fiat once again, the DM playing Ydee, Catherine's half-elven thief and renowned eviscerator
Nick playing Rowena, gnome mystic and latest to be astounded by this party
Chris playing Deckard Stormfallow, human fighter and future dual class threat
Sarai playing Desorna, elven fighter and mapping maven
Hunter playing Strix, elven magic-user and miserable paragon of cleanliness
Zack playing Ahri, elven magic-user and random spellcaster
And, by divine fiat once again, the DM playing Ydee, Catherine's half-elven thief and renowned eviscerator
The
party began by waking up to discover that Arden and Merrick had
somehow set off a teleporter trap during the night, spiriting them
both away and leaving a confused gnome mystic in their stead. While
she was confused and concerned, Rowena agreed to join the party in
the hopes of being able to escape this place that had claimed the
lives of the members of her previous party. One quick Deus Ex Machina
resolved, the adventure continued.
Leaving the relatively safe bedroom behind, the reformulated party left in search of places they had not explored previously., which meant a journey downstairs to the cave level. The mapper led them to the stairs up first before realizing that those went the wrong way, then redirected them to the stairs down nearby.
Descending to the cavern level the party took the southern of the two western tunnels out of this room first, following left hand rule as always. This passage went west briefly before splitting with one passage going southwest and another going northwest. Hearing some tapping sounds from that direction, and with the left hand rule in place, the party went southwest. The passage continued southwest for 20 or so feet before turning south. After another ten feet it entered into a roughly 30' diameter squared off cavern chamber.
The only thing of note was a small pile of stones near the south wall. As the group moved to investigate them several of them seemed to uncurl and became small stone creatures with wicked sharp claws that attacked them.
Though difficult to hit and wound, the creatures were not too tough for the party to handle, though Ahri was mauled by one before it was destroyed. A quick search showed that the pile of stones were concealing a descending hole roughly eight inches in diameter, which descended about eight feet before it turned and angled off. Strix dropped her toad familiar down there to examine the hole without thinking the plan through first. The toad was unable to see anything in the pure darkness, and it was unable to climb back out either. In the end Ydee tied a large knot at the end of the rope and lowered it into the hole. The toad was able to climb onto it and be carefully lifted out by Ydee.
Once the party and familiars had been brought back together again, the party went back to the split and went northwest. A short trip led to another chamber, but a search of this room was relatively uneventful, and the party continued on.
Taking the northern of the west passages out of the access room to the floor above led them down a tunnel for about 20 feet before the passage turned northwest and went another 25-30 feet before opening into another chamber that was filled with a dark mist that smelled vaguely of sulfur. Strix ran into the mist joyfully and was snatched by a grell's tentacle. Her terrified screams brought the rest of the party to the rescue and saved Strix's life. After searching the room the party found some weapons and treasure. After this the party returned to the access room and went down the hall to explore further.
The last unmapped area that the party knew of was directly north of the access room, though to get there the adventurers had to go east, north, northwest, and west. This room was another rough cave chamber shaped roughly like a human heart. This room appeared unoccupied too, but as they searched Ahri was attacked and wrapped up in an enveloper, She fell to the ground with the enveloper wrapped completely around her, and the enveloper began to try to squeeze her to death. Luckily, her friends and allies quickly noticed her peril and attacked and killed the monster before it could kill Ahri. After pocketing the loot the creature had acquired, the party declared the cavern floor fully explored and returned to explore new places.
Returning to the middle floor, they went and climbed to the upper floor to explore an area there; a flight of stairs leading upwards. On the way towards the door they were ambushed by a pair of strange monsters that looked like a twisted spider/human crossbreed. They had two fairly normal arms and legs, plus two spider-like legs in between the human arm and leg on each side. Their otherwise humanoid heads had oversized spider eyes set into them. They summoned webs that filled the hall while one moved to attack from behind and the other from the front. Arhi and Ydee both made their saving throws and escaped the area of the webs before they solidified, but they were not together and both faced one of the spiderlings one on one. Ahri had been healed since her encounter with the enveloper, but the spiderlings attacked with a short sword in each of their human hands and they attempted to stab with one pair of their spider legs too. Ahri was hurt badly by hers, though Ydee had an easier time with the one she faced. Desorna pulled free with some help from Deckard's torch and went to help the mage. Ahri was hurt badly enough that she was about to panic, and after Desorna helped her kill the spiderling she faced, she raced forward and opened the door at the end of the hall, only to find that the hall beyond was filled with webs and another spiderling was waiting for her there. Once the last spiderlings were killed and the webs were burned away, the adventurers continued toward the unexplored stair case.
Climbing up the stairs for a good distance the adventurers found that the stairs ended at a door. Cautiously opening the door the group found themselves in a small cave that opened to the daylit world outside. From the cave side the door to the complex appeared to be cave wall, meaning it would be hard to find from the outside. Happy to have a better way to come and go than the hole in the ceiling the party returned and looked over the map to see what else they might have missed. The doors beyond the pit and slide trapped hallways in the northwest area of the map were close by, so the party headed there to search those.
On the way the party encountered and were attacked by three of the ogre plague zombie things. As the party knew what to expect they were able to defeat them without too much trouble before moving on again.
There were three total doors after the pit and slide traps that the party were going to explore. The first two, once the party could reach them, were discovered to be fake doors that didn't even open. Frustrated the party returned to explore the third in the most northwest area. It was a real door, but when opened it simply revealed a blank wall behind it. Frustrated by this, the party examined the map, looking for anything else they had missed.
As they had found the one-way secret door from Roghan's combat room into the exterior hall around the Doom of Zelligar's room, the mystic put forth the theory that there might be another secret door on the opposite side of the exterior hall. Returning downstairs the party did discover another secret door there. It too was a one-way door, but the application of a knock spell from Ahri made it possible to open from this side. A hallway heading north was on the other side, and it quickly came to a dead end. Searching revealed a secret door in the north wall that led into Zelligar's workroom. That solved, the party returned to check the center of the south part of the external hallway to see if there was something else there.
The center of the south wall of the south hall had a set of double doors in it. Once opened these doors revealed an interesting room beyond.
The 30' east-west by 20' north-south room beyond had a set of double doors opposite the ones the party had opened. But there were a total of 10 statues along the walls: two directly in front of the other doors, one in each of the far corners, and another one between each of the corner statues and the ones blocking the far doors. One stood in the middle of each of the side walls, and one in each of the near corners. All the statues seemed to be facing the center of the room where a dark and shadowy figure hovered above the center of the floor. Desorna rushed in with her magical battle axe to attack the shadowy figure, but as she did, sparks began to run over and around the statues. She did some damage to the shadow fiend before arcs of electricity leapt from each of the statues to the door frame around the doors the party had opened. The damage from the lightning hurt Desorna and made her rethink her decision to be in the room attacking the shadow creature. Quickly she fled the room.
From this point the party began trying to figure how to get into and through the room. Several plans were tried, but none were successful. One more ended with Desorna being hit by the lightning again, which dropped her to -1 hit point and made the party realize that it was probably time to go back to town since their high-level fighter was not going to be capable of doing much of anything to help until she had gotten the rest she needed to recover. The party decided to go to the angel room and take advantage of its magic to heal and restore spell points before returning home.
The journey home again took almost twice as long as usual since Desorna was barely functional once healed. Luckily, Desorna's ridiculous amount of rations were what kept the party able to avoid starving on the trip home. Once home again, Desorna rested and the others sold off some items and acquired others. Then Desorna trained to her new level and gained the abilities she wanted. And there the adventure ended.
Leaving the relatively safe bedroom behind, the reformulated party left in search of places they had not explored previously., which meant a journey downstairs to the cave level. The mapper led them to the stairs up first before realizing that those went the wrong way, then redirected them to the stairs down nearby.
Descending to the cavern level the party took the southern of the two western tunnels out of this room first, following left hand rule as always. This passage went west briefly before splitting with one passage going southwest and another going northwest. Hearing some tapping sounds from that direction, and with the left hand rule in place, the party went southwest. The passage continued southwest for 20 or so feet before turning south. After another ten feet it entered into a roughly 30' diameter squared off cavern chamber.
The only thing of note was a small pile of stones near the south wall. As the group moved to investigate them several of them seemed to uncurl and became small stone creatures with wicked sharp claws that attacked them.
Though difficult to hit and wound, the creatures were not too tough for the party to handle, though Ahri was mauled by one before it was destroyed. A quick search showed that the pile of stones were concealing a descending hole roughly eight inches in diameter, which descended about eight feet before it turned and angled off. Strix dropped her toad familiar down there to examine the hole without thinking the plan through first. The toad was unable to see anything in the pure darkness, and it was unable to climb back out either. In the end Ydee tied a large knot at the end of the rope and lowered it into the hole. The toad was able to climb onto it and be carefully lifted out by Ydee.
Once the party and familiars had been brought back together again, the party went back to the split and went northwest. A short trip led to another chamber, but a search of this room was relatively uneventful, and the party continued on.
Taking the northern of the west passages out of the access room to the floor above led them down a tunnel for about 20 feet before the passage turned northwest and went another 25-30 feet before opening into another chamber that was filled with a dark mist that smelled vaguely of sulfur. Strix ran into the mist joyfully and was snatched by a grell's tentacle. Her terrified screams brought the rest of the party to the rescue and saved Strix's life. After searching the room the party found some weapons and treasure. After this the party returned to the access room and went down the hall to explore further.
The last unmapped area that the party knew of was directly north of the access room, though to get there the adventurers had to go east, north, northwest, and west. This room was another rough cave chamber shaped roughly like a human heart. This room appeared unoccupied too, but as they searched Ahri was attacked and wrapped up in an enveloper, She fell to the ground with the enveloper wrapped completely around her, and the enveloper began to try to squeeze her to death. Luckily, her friends and allies quickly noticed her peril and attacked and killed the monster before it could kill Ahri. After pocketing the loot the creature had acquired, the party declared the cavern floor fully explored and returned to explore new places.
Returning to the middle floor, they went and climbed to the upper floor to explore an area there; a flight of stairs leading upwards. On the way towards the door they were ambushed by a pair of strange monsters that looked like a twisted spider/human crossbreed. They had two fairly normal arms and legs, plus two spider-like legs in between the human arm and leg on each side. Their otherwise humanoid heads had oversized spider eyes set into them. They summoned webs that filled the hall while one moved to attack from behind and the other from the front. Arhi and Ydee both made their saving throws and escaped the area of the webs before they solidified, but they were not together and both faced one of the spiderlings one on one. Ahri had been healed since her encounter with the enveloper, but the spiderlings attacked with a short sword in each of their human hands and they attempted to stab with one pair of their spider legs too. Ahri was hurt badly by hers, though Ydee had an easier time with the one she faced. Desorna pulled free with some help from Deckard's torch and went to help the mage. Ahri was hurt badly enough that she was about to panic, and after Desorna helped her kill the spiderling she faced, she raced forward and opened the door at the end of the hall, only to find that the hall beyond was filled with webs and another spiderling was waiting for her there. Once the last spiderlings were killed and the webs were burned away, the adventurers continued toward the unexplored stair case.
Climbing up the stairs for a good distance the adventurers found that the stairs ended at a door. Cautiously opening the door the group found themselves in a small cave that opened to the daylit world outside. From the cave side the door to the complex appeared to be cave wall, meaning it would be hard to find from the outside. Happy to have a better way to come and go than the hole in the ceiling the party returned and looked over the map to see what else they might have missed. The doors beyond the pit and slide trapped hallways in the northwest area of the map were close by, so the party headed there to search those.
On the way the party encountered and were attacked by three of the ogre plague zombie things. As the party knew what to expect they were able to defeat them without too much trouble before moving on again.
There were three total doors after the pit and slide traps that the party were going to explore. The first two, once the party could reach them, were discovered to be fake doors that didn't even open. Frustrated the party returned to explore the third in the most northwest area. It was a real door, but when opened it simply revealed a blank wall behind it. Frustrated by this, the party examined the map, looking for anything else they had missed.
As they had found the one-way secret door from Roghan's combat room into the exterior hall around the Doom of Zelligar's room, the mystic put forth the theory that there might be another secret door on the opposite side of the exterior hall. Returning downstairs the party did discover another secret door there. It too was a one-way door, but the application of a knock spell from Ahri made it possible to open from this side. A hallway heading north was on the other side, and it quickly came to a dead end. Searching revealed a secret door in the north wall that led into Zelligar's workroom. That solved, the party returned to check the center of the south part of the external hallway to see if there was something else there.
The center of the south wall of the south hall had a set of double doors in it. Once opened these doors revealed an interesting room beyond.
The 30' east-west by 20' north-south room beyond had a set of double doors opposite the ones the party had opened. But there were a total of 10 statues along the walls: two directly in front of the other doors, one in each of the far corners, and another one between each of the corner statues and the ones blocking the far doors. One stood in the middle of each of the side walls, and one in each of the near corners. All the statues seemed to be facing the center of the room where a dark and shadowy figure hovered above the center of the floor. Desorna rushed in with her magical battle axe to attack the shadowy figure, but as she did, sparks began to run over and around the statues. She did some damage to the shadow fiend before arcs of electricity leapt from each of the statues to the door frame around the doors the party had opened. The damage from the lightning hurt Desorna and made her rethink her decision to be in the room attacking the shadow creature. Quickly she fled the room.
From this point the party began trying to figure how to get into and through the room. Several plans were tried, but none were successful. One more ended with Desorna being hit by the lightning again, which dropped her to -1 hit point and made the party realize that it was probably time to go back to town since their high-level fighter was not going to be capable of doing much of anything to help until she had gotten the rest she needed to recover. The party decided to go to the angel room and take advantage of its magic to heal and restore spell points before returning home.
The journey home again took almost twice as long as usual since Desorna was barely functional once healed. Luckily, Desorna's ridiculous amount of rations were what kept the party able to avoid starving on the trip home. Once home again, Desorna rested and the others sold off some items and acquired others. Then Desorna trained to her new level and gained the abilities she wanted. And there the adventure ended.
DM
Note: The party paid the 15 gold for their lodging during Desorna's
recovery period, but there needs to be 30 more gold spent for the 10
extra days of lodging while she was in training. Unfortunately, since
this group is not in good with Vanessa Barskin and Officer Carrick's
family (since only Ahri had been with the group at the time) they
can't get the advantages of that connection. Alas.
For
those who are interested, and that may be none of you really,
experience for this adventure was 750 for most of the party and 375
for Ydee. Those who leveled can train up while Desorna is training,
providing they have the funds.
Edited
to include the misty room and the grell within that I forgot in the
original write-up cos I was TIRED. For quickly reminding me of the
room's occupant, the party gets double the xp for that encounter.
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