September 24th, 2017

A New Tomb and The Return to the Aerie

From my left:

Chris playing Deckard the 3^rd/7^th level human ex-fighter/thief

Nicholas playing Merrick the 7^th level human fighter

Evan playing Lyagia the 2^nd level human mystic

Haley playing the 1^st level elven druid

Hunter playing Flever Graveltoes the 1^st level gnome ranger who should be 2^nd level long ago

Paige playing Keeva the 4^th level halfling infiltrator

Mikey playing Ivan Lok'tar the 4^th level dwarven fighter and party spokesdwarf

Zack playing LaVeya the 6^th/1^st level human druid/magic-user

New Connor playing Iloxiron the 1^st level half-elven spellsword

and the DM playing Ydee the 6^th level half-elf thief for the absent Catherine

See if this sounds familiar...

The adventure started with a flash of light and the adventurers appeared somewhere else, this time inside a tomb like every other tomb they had explored through the cubic key: within a thirty foot by thirty foot stone room with a door in the center of each wall.* After half a second the decision was “We'll go subjective north. Again.” Because tradition dictates. And also because they figured that this would make it possible for them to quickly discover which of the tombs they had returned to since they had gone subjectively north in each of them at one time or another. So it was logical more than whimsical. To a certain degree.

Once the northern door was opened the party could see that the hallway beyond went thirty feet straight ahead before it dead-ended in a blank wall. This was a new experience for them, so they cautiously proceeded down the hall until they could see the chalk mark on the right hand wall at the dead end. The mark was an 'X' which Deckard was fairly sure that he, as the man who marked the ways, did not make. This meant that they were on unfamiliar ground in a new-to-them tomb. Unfortunately, when Desorna entered the geriatric facility she took the maps she had made with her, so there was no way to confirm this. After briefly searching the walls for secret anything, the adventurers returned to the first room and started over.

Back in the center entry room the party took the eastern pathway out of the room. Another thirty foot long dead end hallway was found beyond, and some chalk marks were visible on the left wall. After checking the hall carefully the adventurers came down and found that a square roughly twenty inches on each side had been chalked onto the wall at about human shoulder height. Further investigation showed that the box marked a hidden panel which Merrick carefully levered open using the blunt dagger he kept for such purposes. Behind the hinged panel he found a small valve wheel. This made him somewhat uncomfortable as his previous experiences with these were unpleasant at best, but with encouragement he turned the wheel anyway. With a loud grinding sound the large stone block at the end of the hallway began to slide into the wall revealing a short passage that led to a four-way intersection. Carefully the adventurers continued on.

After the ten foot hallway to the intersection each branch of the hallways went ten feet before ending in a standard solid stone door. Subjective north remained the choice of ways to travel, so the adventurers turned left and proceeded north.

Through the door the adventurers entered a room** that was thirty feet on each side with the party entering in the center of of south wall and one other door visible across the room on the far wall. The floor of this room was the only unusual feature in an otherwise undecorated room, with four sets of concentric squares of grooves starting about eight feet inside the door and spaced roughly four feet apart until they ended around the central ten foot by ten foot center of the room. Each groove was roughly four inches wide and the same distance deep. Some experimentation was done to try to determine what would happen if the party crossed the channels by throwing or skipping objects across the floor and when these provided no information Deckard crossed the floor to discover what horrible things would happen, though he had tied a safety rope around his waist first and Merrick held the other end.

There was a faint click as Deckard crossed the center square but nothing else happened. As Deckard searched the far door for traps or locks and found none the rest of the party began to notice that the room appeared to be getting misty. They also noticed that the door they had entered through was locked just like the door Deckard was examining. The mist grew more and more thick until there was a flash and a mild shockwave of electricity arced through the room, stinging everyone. Luckily the charge had apparently dropped over time so it was not lethal. Once the charge had fired the mist dissipated and the far door could be opened. Happy to escape this room, the adventurers moved on.

A twenty foot long hallway stretched ahead of them, ending at yet another door. Once opened the adventurers found themselves at one end of a twenty foot long hallway leading off to the left. This hallway also ended in a door. The majority of the party retreated to the far end of the hallway so the tank dwarf has a clear runway to use to smash through the door. He did so and immediately fell into the trench on the other side with a loud clatter of metallic armor and dwarven curses.

The room the dwarf had cleverly found was a fifty foot diameter octagonal room with a ten foot wide and ten foot deep trench around the outer wall leaving a thirty foot diameter 'island' in the center of the room. There was one door on the far side of the room. Deckard tried to attach the grappling hook to the floor outside the room, but the hook slipped and fell in when he was starting his climb. After joining Ivan in the pit he tried to throw the hook to catch on the center island, but he had no luck. Ivan asked for a try but fared no better. Finally Deckard just climbed on Ivan's shoulders and found that the island was unnaturally smooth and even felt slightly slick. With Ivan military pressing him up, Deckard was able to scramble onto the island. Deckard inchwormed his way across the island and discovered a chalked circle in the center of it. It didn't seem to be a panel or a hatch, so while curious it didn't help much.

Meanwhile Merrick was bored, and a bored Merrick is a dangerous thing. With Iloxiron holding the rope Merrick lowered himself into the trench and wandered around it looking for anything else of interest. As he came around to the far side he saw that there were two chalked rectangles on the walls, one directly underneath the door on this side, and the other on the island opposite the first one. Examining the chalked areas revealed nothing, so Merrick and Ivan examined the floor there instead. A fifteen inch wide section of the stone floor between the chalked rectangles seemed to be made of a different type of stone, and while Ivan examined the new stone in a typically dwarven way (he liked the stone. Don't judge. It's a dwarf thing.) Merrick began using his blunt dagger to fiddle with the seams between the stone. There was a sudden rush as the different stone launched from the ground forming a bridge from the unexplored door to the island. This sudden launch resulted in Ivan getting smacked in the noggin by the stone while Merrick had gotten mostly out of the way and just had his leg hooked over the rapidly rising bridge. After it jerked to a stop and Merrick fell on his head, the human fighter tossed one end of his rope over the wall so the dwarven fighter could belay him and Merrick could scale the wall. Merrick inchwormed his way onto the island to join Deckard. Further exploration of the island revealed nothing much of interest, so the fighters crossed and opened the unexplored door. This door opened into the center of a thirty foot long hallway that was a dead end in each direction, but there was a door directly opposite the one they came through. With some assistance and some occasionally unfortunate rope skills (Iloxiron gave a perfect demonstration of What Not To Do) the rest of the party rejoined their point men and the preparations for further exploring. But the wandering monster rolls had a different idea of what would come next.

A grinding sound was heard from the northern dead end and when the party looked they saw another huge stone slowly sliding out of the way. Unfortunately another huge stone was behind it, this one being a broad and tall statue that moved forward toward them. Iloxiron, as a professional soldier, knew that this was the time to demonstrate his bravery as he rushed forward to attack. The stone statue quickly reduced him to -2 hit points and the front line fighters, having taken note of the damage the thing could do, moved in and prepared themselves for a long and bloody battle.

The battle was brutal and bloody. Iloxiron was returned to the land of the conscious and seriously-in-pain as was Keeva after she maneuvered into a prime backstab position only to have the statue take a couple of steps backward and pummel her into unconsciousness (also causing Elvira, the chicken-child's, wing to be broken [again] when Keeva's unconscious form collapsed on her). Finally the thing was destroyed by Keeva (on a technicality that Merrick would likely argue until the end of time), and the party could relax for a moment before continuing. In the race to dig through the remaining rubble of the statue, Deckard found what looked like a blood-red heart made of stone and picked it up just before Keeva, hampered by her own venture into negative hit points, could dive on it first. With nothing else of value to be found in the remains, the party explored the area where the statue had been.

The area beyond the sliding stone was a thirty foot long hallway that ended in a set of double doors that had been ornately carved in repetitive geometric designs. After careful examination and opening of the locks the party ventured beyond.

The room beyond the double doors was the largest yet in this tomb, fifty feet wide by sixty feet long with a raised dais with a throne on it at the far end. The throne at least seemed to be unoccupied which made some of the adventurers happy and others very nervous.*** Carefully the adventurers moved closer to the throne which did look impressive. It was very large and yet very plain, with nothing carved onto it. Exploring around the throne revealed a hole roughly six inches in diameter in the back of the throne. This hole was very dark and when Merrick attempted to see how deep it was with his ten foot pole, after pushing half of the pole in and touching nothing he withdrew the pole to discover that it was now a five foot pole. The party decided to not experiment further with whatever it was.

Meanwhile Deckard had been looking at the steps to the dais and noticed that they had some carvings on them. One natural 20 on his thiefly languages skill roll later (really? REALLY? Dang it!) the DM told him that these seemed to be names associated with the person this tomb was for. But the only one he could remotely figure out seemed to be “the vanisher” (more accurately “the one who causes others to vanish”), which made all kinds of sense if the item in the back of the throne actually was a sphere of annihilation.

Further inspection revealed that the stone seat of the throne had a seam around it, making it seem that it could perhaps be lifted and removed. Merrick began exploring with his blunt dagger when he reached a point where his “my wife Shay is going to kill me if I do this, even if she has to bring me back to life first” senses kicked in as he felt what kind of felt like it might be a trigger for a trap. Caaarefully backing away, Merrick called Deckard's attention to it. Further exploration did reveal a trap of some unknown sort there, but Deckard, Ydee, and Keeva failed to disarm the trap. Wishing they had better rolls, the adventurers discussed their options. In the end it was decided that Deckard would open the seat while the rest of the party bravely held the doors into the room firmly shut just in case. But Flever sidled closer as Deckard prepared to open the seat of the throne. As he did so a flash of darkness expanded out of the seat. Deckard made his discipline saving throw, but the next closest character did not. While Deckard blinked to try to clear the blindness Flever rushed forward, reached into the area under the seat, pulled out what looked like a black iron crown, and jammed it on his head. The gnome ranger then disappeared in a flash of darkness.****

In shock at the disappearance of their companion, and Keeva's husband, the party froze for a moment before Deckard looked into the space to see what else remained. A black iron ring that looked like a old jailer's keyring lay in the space. As Deckard picked it up, it seemed to grow slightly warm in his hand. After a few seconds***** he put it back. LaVeya asked if she could try to identify it, but before she could get halfway through casting the spell there was another flash of darkness and the party found themselves in a familiar looking room that proved to be the common room of the Aerie.

Aftermath:

An hour or so after their arrival, a naked gnome screaming incoherently appeared in the room where he collapsed in a heap on the floor whimpering and babbling to himself. He looked bruised and damaged and filthy, but he was basically alive and remotely well.

A couple of hours or so after Flever's reappearance the Silver Griffons appeared in the Aerie. They also were damaged and disheveled and smelled faintly of gas, but they were alive and relatively well. Conversations revealed that the adventurers had been sent to the tomb that Glenalen, the Griffons' magic-user, had explored solo upon accidentally discovering how the cubic key worked. The chalk marks the party had found were obviously Glenalen's. The Griffons had ended up in the silty tunnels of the first tomb that the party had explored. They fought several things and found a goblin's corpse (poor Pok'nar). Nathaniel had also been found 'worthy' in the tomb and he now had an obsidian dagger like Merrick's.

After several days' of rest to recover from their experiences the adventurers headed to town with Barron, now wearing his reserve armor, and Glenalen. Some training and several side trips were made during this time, and several minor adventures were had. Iloxiron decided to increase his personal funds to pay for training by attempting to sleep an aristocratic sort in the marketplace on market day so he could rob him. Cue the Grail Knight at this juncture (“He chose … poorly.”) and the mayor's son and the dozen town guard in the marketplace pummeled the hapless spellsword and arrested him after he slept five townsfolk around the aristocrat instead. In court Iloxiron managed to avoid one of the three felony charges but while trying to talk his way out of jail time he apparently all but confessed to the others and said he'd do them again. Ydee went to bat for him in court after that and managed to only get him banished from town permanently (though after six months he could try to get allowed back in town again under supervision, like the current situation with the carrot-thief Flever) and payment of a 500 g.p. fine. Since Iloxiron had a total of six, count them, six, gold pieces, this was a minor problem. However Ydee paid the fine and was reimbursed from some emergency party funds Deckard had found.******

Market day was interesting as there was someone there selling magical weapons, as is. Cheaply. Well, inexpensively. Or comparatively so. The adventurers bought several: two long bows, two short bows, and a staff. Once purchased LaVeya identified them and announced that two were pretty much worthless, two were better than nothing at all, and the staff she had no idea about. Still, the party now had some vaguely useful magical ranged weapons.

A trip to visit Glykras later the unfortunate less than useful items had been traded to Glykras for magical research purposes for a useful magical shortbow. And Deckard had happily dropped 600 gold pieces from the found funds****** on six essence potions which made LaVeya's (and her player Zack's) eyes bug out in surprise at how easily he had tossed down the gems for those potions. In exchange for the pamphlet Deckard had written about the recent experiences Glykras had identified the purchased magic items and made the trade.

Sirenia, the Silver Griffins' druid, discovered that Elvira's wing that Flever had been flapping about to prove that the chicken was fine, just complainy, was actually broken. Sirenia and Keeva discussed the horribly embarrassed and upset Flever's failings as a father and caretaker at length directly in front of the gnome. Then the chicken parents went to town to purchase Elvira a sibling, Madonna-style.

There were some . . . difficulties in purchasing Flever some clothes to replace the human-sized leather armor LaVeya had gifted to him. Flever apparently had earned a reputation as a free-spending nitwit and an easy mark for ridiculously inflated prices on goods. After buying a baby chick for a gold piece (only about 100 times its normal sale price), Flever got distracted looking at fancy platform shoes and left the chick in the cobbler's store while he ran back to beg Keeva for an advance on his allowance so he could buy the fancy shoes. After dealing with Keeva's puncturing of his dream about fancy footwear it was noticed that the chick was no longer in Flever's possession. Mild panic ensued as they went in search. Keeva went to the cobbler's store and learned that a small boy had seen the abandoned chick and picked it up. Keeva managed to track the boy down, which was a minor miracle all by itself, before using her charisma to convince the boy to return her chick to her. Her amazingly good luck at tracking was balanced by her amazingly bad luck at charisma tests (“Give me that chick or I'll cut you into a thousand pieces and feed them to the hogs!”) and the young boy and his friends, terrified by the evil halfling, ran like hell taking the hick with them. Sighing, Keeva returned to the marketplace and bought a replacement chick for 2 copper pieces. Flever, so far, is none the wiser.

LaVeya, frustrated at the lack of easily found wolves and foxes in the area, used market day as a chance to buy a huge tracking dog (roughly the size of an Irish wolfhound, so almost a wolf in itself) and a guard dog (about German Shepard sized). An animal friendship spell on each and she has two new animal companions with small shaved patches where she collected fur for her shifter's pouch.

And at this juncture Deckard Stormfallow takes his leave of the party to go spend time with the various members of the Council of Eleven and the Archdruid Avonlea because Chris' work schedule for his new job will have him working Sundays after the first of the month. Sadface. But we will be considering a Tuesday game so he can still play and amuse me with his antics. :-p

Experience points for the adventure

Deckard – 1210 + 500 for reasons

Merrick – 1210

Lyagia – 1210

Haley – 907

Flever – 907 + 200 for market day

Keeva – 907 + 200 for market day

Ivan – 1210

LaVeya – 1210

Iloxiron – 1210 + 500 for learning the law painfully

Ydee – Some. You don't need to know how much experience I have.

Footnotes:

* The original plan was to have the Silver Griffins and the player-characters go through the tomb together, but after thinking it over once at the game the DM realized that he would be dealing with sixteen characters. Sixteen. Of which the DM was going to be playing seven. The DM came to his senses and had the Griffins go to a different tomb; one that he had playtested with the Griffins earlier in the week to see if he had rebalanced it properly. Oy. Two full adventuring parties. What the heck was I thinking?

** There was some debate over whether or not the room had actually been entered by the party once the misty trap had been activated. The DM ruled that they all had entered because reasons. -grump-

*** Guess which group is the paranoid group? And, yeah, it's not really paranoia since they KNEW the tomb's creator was out to get them. But they failed to realize where the tomb's creator was, bwahahaha.

**** Hunter is an entertaining player who holds the record at this table for most characters killed due to forseeable “accidents”, often referred to by the rest of the party as “What were you thinking???” moments. Failing the save and wearing the crown allowed his body to be possessed by the now-insane spirit of the tomb's inhabitant who would prepare for new world domination by teleporting himself to a cave where many items of power had been hidden thousands of years ago. An earthquake had collapsed the cave between then and now, so the teleporting character was going to be irrevocably dead. Thus, this character death was going to fit that mold too, but the DM was reminded that Flever actually was wearing a minor artifact (which was not known by the players until, well, now) that appeared to be a lesser magical item of survival that gave bonuses on saves against disease and poison, and that could protect him from reasonable temperature extremes. It also could save his life ONCE before vanishing effectively forever. So, completely naked and terribly afraid, Flever was returned to the party with memories he didn't want (this is what it feels like to find parts of your body suddenly fused with rock and the rest of your body is pulped). Yay Flever?

***** After a few seconds and the player noticing that the DM was counting down quietly...

****** Found. For Reasons. That aren't your concern.