September 25th, 2016

Will The Real Spellsword Please Come Back?
The party today from my left to my right:
Chris possibly playing Valandil the confusing spellsword maybe kinda sorta
Sarai playing the combat unready half-elven witch
Hunter playing Dorni the trap-detecting gnome thief
Zack playing Ahri the advanced elven magic-user
and in ghost form for part of the adventure, Nilo playing Arden the halfling healbot without spell points
After defeating the spider and uncovering the cocooned orc corpse at the end of the last adventure, the remaining party decided to explore the north passageway next. There they encountered two more spiders who were rapidly squished. After that they opened up the two web cocoons and discovered an orc corpse in one and a body wearing all of the spellsword's equipment in the other. The problem was that the body wasn't that of the spellsword, instead being made up of what looked like interwoven clusters of vines formed into a humanoid shape. Perplexed by this, the party tried to figure out when they could be certain that they had last been dealing with the actual spellsword and not some sort of odd plantwhateveritis. In the end they decided that the last time they could be fairly certain that they had seen him was when they had gone through the angel door and he hadn't followed. He was there when they all woke up in the entry room, but they knew he hadn't been with them in between. So they went back to explore the hall that led south from the angel door and examine the demon-faced door at the other end. The magic-user made a great roll for an Int check and decided that the door was only opened by having magic cast at it. She used a charge off of the wand of magic missiles and the door opened revealing darkness within. The magic-user and thief failed their saving throws and walked in, lured by something. The cleric and witch made their saves and came in after the others very cautiously.
Inside the room they found a large plant with gigantic tulip-shaped flowers growing from it. The plant took up the entire south wall of the room. As the witch and cleric watched, the thief and magic-user each went over to a flower and allowed it to droop down and engulf their heads. The elven spellsword, all but naked, was also in the room sitting with a flower covering his head. With some major effort the witch used her dagger to attempt to hack through the stem of the flower on the spellsword's head. Having done so, which took a long long time because of her 5 strength, the spellsword was freed. Borrowing the dagger he lopped off the flowers on the heads of the thief and the magic-user, then the party made their way back down to the cavern level so the spellsword could collect his gear.
After the spellsword was geared up and ready to go again, the party returned to town so they could resupply, the magic-user could train to second level, and the gnome thief could get over a sickness she had developed. The spellsword commissioned some items and the party spent over a week resting, recovering, and training. Unfortunately the party learned that their secret was out and others had gone looking for the stronghold again. The party headed out almost immediately when they learned others were encroaching on their discovery.
Back in the dungeon the party continued to the room with the downward spiraling path that the gnome thief had discovered in her flight from the not-really-the-elven spellsword's final battle. Descending the ramp the party encountered a message that started with treasure but then threatened death unless they paid the price of freedom. There was a well at the bottom of the ramp in the center of the cavern, and looking into it they could see coins, jewels, and items lying at the bottom of the well roughly 30 feet down. Unfortunately, when the witch attempted to run up the slope to escape the pit she discovered that a wall of force was blocking them in, and the sound of rapidly flowing water could be heard from the well. The party tossed a large portion of their coins into the well until the water stopped flowing in and their ears popped, showing that the pressure had equalized and the wall of force was gone. The spellsword tied a rope around his waist and handed the other end to the magic-user before jumping in to see if he could reach the treasure below. Unfortunately he discovered a wall of force in place that acted as a funnel allowing much of the treasures to pass through but not any explorers. After exploring the room in any way they could think of to discover a way to get to the treasure and coming up empty, the party left to explore other passages.
Exploring other cave passages they entered a roughly triangular shaped cave that had a door on the far side of the room. Not having seen many doors down here, the party went through the door and into the finished square room beyond. Another door was in the wall opposite the way they had come in, but when they opened that they found a blank wall behind it. After trying to see if they could find any secret doors and failing, they went back out through the door they entered by to discover that they were in a long north-south hallway. The confusion was palpable, but in the end there was mutterings about how the DM was not nice and the party proceeded on, going north.
The party wandered/blundered madly through the varied hallways and rooms of the new area. Several fights occurred, including a revisit with the odd green ogre creatures that almost appeared to be ambulatory bags of fungus and sickness and that exploded on being killed spewing their filth and goo everywhere. Good times, good times. The party did remember to burn them this time, and they burned with smells of sickness and lots of choking smoke. Anyway, the party among other things found a pair of side by side rooms with tapestries with lovely pastoral scenes, except for the tentacles swarming out of the pond in the first and hanging from the trees like vines in the second. The witch was not amused.
In a secret room that appeared to be an empty library judging by the empty bookshelves, the spellsword moved the bookshelves away from the walls so secret doors could be searched for behind them. No secret doors were found, but an odd line drawing was carved on the back of one of the sections. The spellsword decided it was a kind of map and so decided to follow it as best as they could. After following the map and fighting more of the fungogre things the party finally found a room they recognized: the room with the large hole in the floor where they had ascended weeks before. Now having the new map aligned with the old they were ready to continue exploring again.
But 9:00 had come so we ended for the week with the party in better condition than they had been in before.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

October 29, 2017 (Yes, it is late in posting.)

An Unforseen Circumstance and a Short Halloween Adventure (with Another Unforseen Circumstance!) From my left: Mikey playing Ivan Lok'tar the 5 th level dwarven fighter Nicholas playing Merrick the 7 th level human fighter Zack playing LaVeya the 6 th /3 rd level human druid/magic-user New Connor playing Iloxiron the 3 rd level half-elven spellsword and the DM playing Ydee the 6 th level half-elf thief for the absent Catherine After half tumbling down the hidden stairs to the third level, the adventurers began exploring their surroundings. The thirty by thirty room the stairs descended into the center of had open exits from the room in the center of each wall. The north and south exits led into thirty foot wide by twenty foot deep rooms with two doors in each room while the east and west passages went thirty feet before coming to an intersection. After some discussion the party went north. The room was relatively barren with doors in t...
Read more

December-January

The Descent into the Depths (aka the DM, with his laptop mostly back into service, now plays catch-up) Since we last saw the adventurers they have learned of and gone in search of an item called the Tome of Prophecy, spending some time in an unusual tower before finding themselves in an even more unusual pocket plane where, after dealing with odd gravity, gardens that weren't, animated topiary monsters, and finally being 1/12 their normal size and trying to get through a huge study they found themselves before a withered and wasted very old but still alive man in his office behind the study. The old man made them very uncomfortable but, after deciding that maybe the time was right, he did hand over to them the Tome of Collected Prophecies. He also was amused by Merrick's acquisition of most of the blackened skull of a human-sized person, and he told Merrick some of the very uncomfortable stories behind the skull before sending the party elsewhere, like minor deities do. ...
Read more

November 5, 2017 (yes, late, being busy sucks)

A Long Journey From my left: Nicholas playing Merrick the 7 th level human fighter Evan playing Lyagia the 3 rd level human mystic Mikey playing Ivan Lok'tar the 5 th level dwarven fighter Zack playing LaVeya the 6 th /3 rd level human druid/magic-user New Connor playing Iloxiron the 3 rd level half-elven spellsword and the DM playing Ydee the 6 th level half-elf thief for the absent Catherine The return to Ruinheath was as expected, with little or no difficulty making the jaunt. Once back in town the adventurers take some time to take care of some business. LaVeya has earned enough experience to train to her next level as a druid (4 th level spells! Woohoo!) while Ivan has decided that he wants a little more variety in his life and begins the basic work of learning to be a member of the clergy. While this training was going on, some time was spent in other activities, including going to the Curio Shop every few days to see if th...
Read more