January 29th, 2017

Somewhere Under the Castle in the Sky

As the Party Continues Their Meandering Through The Halls of Wandering. Still. Always. Eternally.

From my left:

Sarai playing Desorna the elven fighter and Unwilling Abuse Toy (TM)

Hunter playing Strix the elven magic-user and Purple Hole of Spiraling Damnation

Zack playing Ahri the elven magic-user and Double Barreled Force Shotgun

Nilo playing Arden the halfling cleric and O.M.G. I AM NOT AN ENDLESS HEALCANNON Rage-o-matic

Nick playing Merrick the human fighter and "What Just Happened?" Kung-Fu Action Figure

Christopher Allen Poe playing Valandil the elven spellsword and Skilled Translator

and, by divine fiat, Catherine playing Ydee the half-elven thief and Eternal Frustration Robot.

The adventure began within the room of the creature now called Ivy as the party awakened from their somewhat rough night's sleep. Though somewhat stiff and sore the party was relatively refreshed and ready to go.

Exiting the room with farewells to Ivy, the party headed back to the room of many doors and through the west door. Having taken the hallway south previously, they went north to see what lay in that direction. After a fifty foot journey the hall ended in a door. Opening the door revealed a thirty by thirty room with a door in the center of each of the west, north, and east walls, and three doors total in the south wall, the party having entered the room through the center door. The other two southern doors had bars on them preventing them from being opened from the other side. The door in the southeast corner matched up to the door in the northwest corner of the room they had appeared in after Strix had flailed away at the chimes, so they ignored it completely. The bar on the door in the southwest corner had swollen from moisture, so it was difficult to open, but they managed it and passed through.

On the far side was a twenty foot wide room that stretched into the darkness to the south. Desorna and Ydee both heard a sound from that direction that was much like crunching bones. Desorna was on a mind to go anywhere else, but the rest of the party explored south to see what they could find. As they moved closer the crunching noise ceased. Once their light showed far enough they could see the end of the fifty foot long room and the odd nest-like lair that had been constructed there from rubble. As they came closer, the monstrosity within burst out and attacked, knocking Valandil aside and sending his torch falling to the ground. The monster revealed in the continual light of Desorna's staff was over 8 feet tall and looked like a cross of a bear's body and the head of a wolf mixed with a lion. The paws were more leonine as well, and the slavering creature put them to good use in the battle, grabbing Desorna with both and pulling her close so it could chew on her shoulder. The party finally killed the beast and took the coins and odd tribal-looking necklaces they found in its lair. There were no other visible exits out of this room, so they searched for secret doors and found two in the west wall, one at the twenty foot mark and one at the forty foot mark. They opened the southernmost and found a corridor going further south.

At the forty foot mark of the hallway there was a door in both the east and west walls. The hallway continued ten feet past the doors before ending. Though a search was made, no secret doors were found at the end of the hall so the party returned to the east door and passed through it.

Inside this room were a trio of small dust devils that seemed to be made of sharp metallic shards. Having faced such things before the party attacked with confidence and with some success, rendering the things inert and scattered across the floor. A quick search found three gems that Strix theorized had contained the magical spark that animated these things. A door in the south wall beckoned them further, so they progressed through.

The floor in this next room was scattered with shards of metal which quickly formed themselves into a much larger hurricane of slashing metal bits. The battle here was much tougher but the party was successful, helped by the brave Valandil sticking his hand into the maelstrom to deliver the shocking grasp that damaged it badly. The large gem that was this creature's spark was collected from the rubble, and the party cautiously moved on through the door in the west wall.

The door entered into the northeast corner of a twenty by twenty room with an additional door in the east wall in the southeast corner, a door in the north wall in the northwest corner, and a door in the south wall in the southeast corner. The second east door was opened first, and it revealed a ten by ten foot room with a lever on the east wall. Ydee detected a trap; a pit trap in the floor that pulling the lever would open. Desorna was still curious what pulling the lever would do so Ydee managed to temporarily jam the trap while Valandil tied his rope around the lever and pulled the rope from the previous room. Nothing else happened, so the rope was retrieved and the wanderings continued through the south door.

The hall beyond the door went south for thirty feet before a hallway to the east diverged from the southern passage at the forty foot mark. While the rest of the party waited at the crossroads, Desorna went down the east hall to map it out. The east hall went for forty feet before it ended in a door, with another door in the north wall at the twenty foot mark. Though the doors were appealing, the party decided to continue further south.

After another twenty feet south another intersection occurred at the thirty foot mark with another hallway heading east. A glance down this hallway revealed that it went only ten feet before opening into a chamber filled with mist. Entranced by the mist, Strix ran in and sat in the center of the twenty by thirty room. This proved to be an unwise choice when the nearly two dozen stirges began moving to try to suck her dry of her blood! Panicked, and spurred to quick reactions by her panic, Strix quickly downed the potion of gaseous form she had and blended with the mist, much to the stirges' frustration. Moving quickly up to attack, Ahri cast her burning hands spell, killing half a dozen of the stirges in one flash of flame. Many of the stirges decided to get their revenge on her, so she backpedaled quickly so the stirges wouldn't all attack her, though half a dozen still did so. The flashing blades of the fighter types and the flying flail of Arden and the magical dagger Ydee wielded quickly reduced their numbers, though the stirges quickly reduced the hit points of the party. Finally they all lay dead, the coins scattered across the floor in the room were gathered, and the party began to explore. A wandering monster roll was made, and nothing seemed to happen, but then Strix, Ahri, and Valandil had some of their spell points filter away. A quick search revealed nothing much until Merrick saw a small hunched quadruped roughly the size of a medium-sized dog in the corner. On closer examination the thing was fiercely muscled but its body simply looked like an oversized brain. It attacked Merrick physically and tore at him with its strong claws. The rest of the party moved to attack and the intellect devourer cast a slow spell on the party. Four party members failed their saves, leaving only Desorna, Strix, and Ydee able to act normally. The party, even with most of them at half actions, still managed to do severe damage to the thing, and it finally turned invisible and vanished through the mist. Unsure of where it went and when or how it might return, the party left and continued south along the passage.

The hall continued ten more feet south before it turned a corner to head east. Just after the turn there was a four way intersection. The north hall went ten feet before coming to a dead end, though some words were written on the wall at the end of the hall. The east hall went thirty feet before seeming to open out at the edge of the light, and the south hall went twenty feet before ending in a door. The written words at the end of the north hall drew the party's curiosity, so Desorna went to read them and stood there reading them. Merrick followed her after a bit and stopped to read them too. After a while of their motionless reading, another fell into the word-trap and was paralyzed. Strix tried to use the last of her bag of flour and vinegar to make paste to fill in the words with while not looking at them, and Valandil put a sack over Merrick's head to try to break the spell. After a while the frozen made their saves and were able to leave the magical trap behind.

Leaving the time and energy trap behind the party moved south and through the door where they found themselves in a thirty by thirty room with a door on the south wall that was identical to the exit from the Proving Grounds, though it had something written on it in magical script. Valandil cast read magic and read “The Door to your Doom.” He reported to the party that it said for them to enter. They muscled it open and there was a bright flash of light and they were somewhere else entirely.

The room they found themselves in was a fifty foot diameter circular room, and they were standing in the center of the room. The walls seemed to glow very faintly and then there was a clang and they saw a hugely muscled creature moving toward them at a lumbering run. It was an umber hulk, and it was in a fury. The party went into full kill-it-quickly mode and managed to down the thing fairly fast, though Desorna got savaged in the process. Once the umber hulk was dead there was another flash of light and the party found themselves back in the same room with the Door to Doom before them. With spell points between low and nonexistent, the decision was made to return to a place where they could rest and recover. And there we paused for the night.

Experience points for those who are interested: 628 for Ydee, 970 for Merrick (who missed the first fight completely), and 1,242 for everyone else. And if you want to spend a whole day resting up instead of just 8 hours those who may have made a level can roll for new hit points, gain new spell points, and possibly increase saving throws. Doing so would take time and would reduce your rations awful quickly, but it would potentially give Arden a chance to regain a lot of or all of his spell points, burn through all or most of them on healing, and then rest again to regain more spell points.