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 the east and west walls in the northeast and northwest corners of the room. Right hand rule still being a thing, the party went through the east door to see what was beyond. Merrick set off the fire trap on the door, and the door opened. They entered into the northwest corner of a thirty by thirty room with a door in the center of the east wall, and with two owlbears waiting inside.

With Merrick leading the charge the battle was brief and brutal and ended in victory for the heroes with relatively minor damage inflicted. Several chunks of ore were found in one corner of the room with copious amounts of gold in them. These heavy things were loaded into the adventurers' packs and the party continued on.

Through the far (trapped) door the party found a hallway going north and south, though it only went ten feet north before ending and it went south to meet up with the intersection the adventurers had seen down the east hallway. Deciding to go back and try the northwest door in the north room, the party backtracked and searched for traps before entering.

This room was a mirror image of the northeast one, but it appeared unoccupied, which made the players nervous since the DM had had them roll for the monster chart and had stacked up five poker ships/monster counters nearby. This nervousness extended to the characters who searched the room and then decided to move on through the western door, after removing the expected trap, and into the hall that was a mirror of the eastern hallway. A search was made of the northern end of the hallway for secret doors with none located, then the adventurers headed south through the intersection that led back to the center room, and down toward the south end of the hallway. Much like the north end, there was a door on the east wall before the hallway ended ten feet further and after inspecting, detecting, and disarming the trap on it, the door was opened and the room entered.

This thirty by thirty room was as expected, filling the blank space on the map nicely and with the anticipated door in the east wall in the southeast corner that led back to the southern room. What was not anticipated was the giant skeleton with the giant sword inside. The skeleton moved to attack and the battle began.

This skeleton was a tough customer, hitting almost every time it swung its sword. It focused on the most powerful fighter in the party and, even with LaVeya's spells trying to keep him propped up, soon laid him low. However it had absorbed too much damage in the meantime and finally took a shattering blow. When it died it sent an arc of electricity out from around it, luckily avoiding the prone and bleeding fighter. The badly damaged party collected what items they could find and then began to limp back up to Ivy's room. As they traversed the darkness on the second level they were attacked by some sort of clattering clawed monster(s?) who tore at their flesh as best as they could with sharp claws.* The penalties for fighting in the pitch black affected the adventurers but not the whatever that was attacking them, and the battle was difficult and the risk of accidentally attacking another party member was high. Finally the attacks stopped and the party made it at last to Ivy's room where they quickly prepared to rest and recover while they could. When Merrick stripped off his armor he discovered several welts and sores on his body which had had the effect of reducing his physical stats. They looked like the wounds inflicted by leeches and the answer to what the monster counters that were never fought was explained.

After awakening again LaVeya burned through her newly recovered spell points and then took another nap to regain spell points for the still potentially difficult trip out of the Proving Grounds. The Proving Grounds were exited and the tower climbed without any further encounters, and the still-weak Merrick and his party returned to Ruinheath.

Back in Ruinheath the adventurers spent some time resting and recuperating. After they had recovered from their excursion, they found another adventure waiting for them.** A man wearing all white and with his entire face covered by a concealing veil came to see them accompanied by Mordecai the cleric, Merrick and Ydee's early adventuring companion. The man in white introduced himself as Legin the Scarred, a mystic of the church, and told the party that he needed their help in recovering an evil artifact from a tomb so it could be destroyed through use of a rod of cancellation that Legin carried in a

lead-lined case to prevent it from being triggered accidentally (see also how Merrick got rid of his cursed ring of strength :-p ). When asked why Legin didn't go get it, he said that the tomb was protected from clerical interference so he needed a group without a cleric to enter the tomb, and Mordecai had vouched for the adventurers.*** The adventurers agreed and they all set off for the area of the Barrens where the tomb was hidden.

Upon reaching the small cave where a half-melted iron door stood, Legin cast a protective spell around the adventurers**** and they went onward. A small cave had a circular iron stairwell that descended into darkness, and the adventurers began to carefully descend.

Forty feet down they enter a broad (20 foot wide) hallway corner made of whitish stone. The east hallway goes for thirty feet before ending, and there is a door in the south wall at the end. The south hallway is similar to the east hallway with the door being in the east wall at the far south end of the hallway. The adventurers advanced down the hallway and came to the door. Paranoia was rampant (shocker), so Merrick asked Ydee to search for traps. Ydee found three traps and disarmed them all leaving the door free of physical traps. Merrick opened the door leading to a brief flash of light and the adventurers moved on.

Beyond was a thirty by thirty room with three sarcophagi in the center of each wall, a door in the far corner that obviously led to the east hallway, and a spiral staircase down in the southeast corner. In the center of the room was a stone slab roughly four feet on a side with a rectangular carved stone reliquary sitting on it. There was a carving one of each of the four elemental symbols on each of the four sides and an engraving of the symbol of light on the top. One of the sarcophagi was opened revealing a skeleton in rusty armor with a rusted sword before it. Nothing happened when the skeleton was revealed, and some Ivan quickly bashed it to pieces just in case. After some visual exploration the reliquary was touched and then a swirling dusty mist came up from it. Before the mist could coalesce the party decided to scramble down the staircase.

At the bottom of the forty foot staircase was another wide hallway identical to the floor above, except the directions were reversed with the hallways extending north and west. As the adventurers approached the next door they noticed the stone was more brownish on this level, looking like sandstone. Another triple-trapped door was encountered, disarmed, and bypassed in another flash of light. The room beyond had the same dimensions as the room upstairs, and the same fixtures too, but all stonework remained the sandstone-brown color. The reliquary was not touched and the party dissuaded some of their members from tinkering with the sarcophagi, instead choosing to descend to the next floor.

This level was identical in appearance to the first, except for the reddish tint to the stonework here. Another triple-trapped door was bypassed by Ydee, and another flash of light came when Merrick opened the door. The room beyond was visually identical to the previous ones with the sarcophagi, the slab, the reliquary, and the stairs down. The adventurers quickly touched the reliquary just for spite before running down the stairs.

The fourth level was identical to the second, but with blue-green stone. The expected triple-trapped door was opened with the routine flash of light and the adventurers continued on. This room was identical as well and the adventurers gave it a cursory examination and a tap on the reliquary causing the expected swirl of dust to begin before continuing downstairs.

The fifth level was altogether different. Instead of a branching twenty foot wide hallway, the party came into a fifty foot by fifty foot room. All around the exterior of the room were sarcophagi, dozens of them, maybe a hundred or more. The ceiling in the room was twenty feet high and arched to twenty five feet high at the center. The center of the room was an octagonal mausoleum thirty feet in diameter whose exterior walls to the cardinal directions curved up to make a rounded top that came within half a dozen or so feet of the arched ceiling in the room. The walls in between the cardinal ones were straight for eight feet or so before they sloped more sharply up to the curved roof of the tomb. Each of the flat walls had one of the four elemental symbols engraved into it, and the mausoleum appeared to have no entrances as the party members walked around it, but closer examination of the westward face revealed a seam where some sort of entrance must be. While most of the party considered this Merrick managed to scale the tomb to find that instead of the expected symbol of light on the roof there was an eight pointed star. Confused by this oddity, Merrick climbed back down to rejoin the rest where they finally just used brute strength to push the rock that acted as the 'door' back into the tomb.

Once inside the tomb they found what appeared to be a reliquary made in the shape of a skull, and on it was a thin platinum diadem like the one they had been sent to recover. Shifting dust was already taking the form of a human male who announced that the diadem should not be taken and the party should leave immediately. It seemed to have a limited repertoire for conversation, often replying to questions with “I don't understand what you are asking.” The basic message was that the diadem needed to remain, that undead were an abomination, that it couldn't be destroyed, and that the intruders should leave immediately or sooner. Finally Merrick decided to go back upstairs to ask Legin some extra questions.

Legin was very unhappy to see Merrick and Ivan return without the diadem, asking pointed questions about their capabilities and competence. He called for Mordecai to come and help him explain, but when the cleric came into the cave Merrick thought that he looked . . . different for a moment. Finally they felt certain that Legin was not what he seemed,***** and Ivan attacked, cutting through the hood and veil and revealing the skeletal face of an undead creature. Legin began shouting for Torbok to help him kill the adventurers, then Legin backed off from the battle while 'Mordecai' transformed into the actual form of the doppelganger Torbok and attacked. After just a couple of rounds of battle, Legin the Scarred (actually Nigel the limited Lich) teleported himself and Torbok away, leaving the party alone.

With the news from the surface, the adventurers decided that they had made a huge mistake and decided to leave the tomb and alert the church as to the situation so they could restore the traps and wards in the tomb. Comments were made about the spectral guardians that the party would have faced (and likely died fighting), which made the party happier that they did not complete their mission successfully. And there we basically stopped for the night.

Experience points for the adventure

Merrick – 1450

Ivan – 1300

LaVeya – 1400

Iloxiron – 1300

Ydee – a positive number

Footnotes:

* Actually it was just ten skeletons who had better chances than usual since the undead don't need to see and the party does.

** The obligatory Halloween adventure which was significantly truncated due to small group size and since the party's main fighter had to leave early. Alas.
*** Lies.
**** Actually a magic-user's Protection from Good 10' radius spell.
***** In this they were correct.