Monday, December 16, 2013

Session 19: The Fist of Kord, Part 7

August 17, Year 3488 (SE 118)

Backing off from the giant toads, the party decide to investigate the final, unexplored ledge. However, getting to this ledge requires the entire party to cross the sinkhole - a dangerous undertaking for the less dexterous party members. Considering their options, they decide the best way to handle this is to steal the plank of wood that's lying across the ravine full of bees, and use that to cross.

Starting from the north end of the chamber containing the ravine, Adokas sneaks forward with a rope. Moving silently, he avoids disturbing the bees below, and ties the rope to the end of the wooden plank before retreating back to the rest of the group. Everyone takes hold of the rope, and with one solid tug, they pull the plank past the ravine and halfway across the room.

The commotion rouses the bees, but the party immediately retreat around the corner after their single pull. They hear the agitated bees buzzing around, but the sound doesn't get any closer, and after a few minutes it subsides. Venturing back into the room, the see that the room is clear and the bees have apparently returned to the ravine, allowing them to pull the wooden plank the rest of the way out of the room.

Placing the plank across the sinkhole allows the entire party to cross without too much difficulty, and after they cross they make their way to the ledge and look down it. This ledge is much larger than the previous ones; their lantern illuminates thirty feet down without reaching the floor. Tying the lantern to a rope, then lower it down, discovering that the ledge goes down about fifty feet.

As they lower the lantern towards the floor, a hideous, tentacled centipede-like greater emerges from the darkness (later identified by Tamat as a Carrion Crawler). Attracted by the light, it flails at the lantern with its tentacles, but it is just out of reach. While Sharla holds the lantern's rope, the rest of the party pelt the creature with ranged weapons and two flasks of flaming oil. The first of oil goes wide, but the second strikes it directly. The creature shrieks in pain and retreats into the darkness, but the flaming oil makes it a clearly visible target and the party finish it off with a second valley of missile attacks. The creature explodes in a shower of goo and pus, causing the party to recoil in disgust, despite being over fifty feet away.

With the Carrion Crawler taken care of, Adokas climbs down to investigate the area below. He finds himself in a wide hallway running east-west. To the east is an area full of rubble, which it first glance appears to be a dead end. On closer inspection, the passage does continue past the rubble, although the rubble would need to be cleared out first. The half-eaten corpse of a recently deceased lizardfolk lies near the rubble. Adokas pockets a pouch that it was carrying, which contains several hundred gold pieces and a pair of gemstones. To the west, the passage emerges halfway up the wall of a large chamber. Twenty feet below the opening there is water, and the passageway turns into a narrow and winding ledge that runs along the north end of the chamber.

Adokas climbs back up to report his findings, and the group begin descending from the ledge. Rather than having everyone climb, which could be disastrous for the less skilled climbers, they tie ropes to each individual and lower them down one-by-one. Flossaria, Iriellis, P'hla and Sharla are all lowered, while Tamat, Zedlyn, and Adokas, the three remaining individuals at the top, climb down normally. Everyone reaches the bottom of the ledge safely.

Sharla goes to investigate the rubble, and Flossaria goes as well to keep an eye on her. The rest of the group head to the west, and watch as Adokas heads out onto the ledge, making his way across the room. When he's about thirty feet out, he suddenly hears the sound of something moving rapidly towards him. He turns and starts running back, as two harpies emerge from the darkness and fly towards him!

In his haste, Adokas stumbles and falls, and although he manages to stay on the ledge, the harpies catch up to him and begin tearing into him with their claws. Flossaria and Sharla start running back as the rest of the party pelt the creatures with ranged attack. One of the creatures tears open Adokas's stomach with its claws, dealing him a mortal wound and knocking him unconscious.

The creatures advance on the rest of the party, and Zedlyn steps forward to engage them. One of the harpies is killed by missile weapon fire, but Zedlyn is badly wounded and is forced to retreat. Flossaria, who has just arrived from the other end of the hallway, steps to the front and attacks the creature, badly wounding it and forcing it to flee.

With the immediate danger taken care of, the party approach Adokas to see how bad his wound is. It's bad - the halfling is barely alive, and will most likely bleed out in a matter of minutes without medical attention. None of the spellcasters in the party are skilled enough with healing magic to cure such a serious wound, but casting all of their remaining healing magic at least slows the bleeding process and affords Adokas a few more hours to live. Bandaging him up as best as they can, they take Zedlyn's bedroll to use as a stretcher and, following a suggestion from Tamat, decide to retreat from the dungeon and return to Barar, hoping that the Priests of Kib there will be able to help.

Tamat and Zedlyn climb up the fifty foot ledge first, then use a pair of ropes to pull up Adokas, with the rest of the party following. When they reach the sinkhole, they carry Adokas across. Sharla, in her haste, nearly falls in, but catches herself on a rope that the rest of the party were holding. There are no further obstacles between the party and the exit, so they leave the cave and head back to Barar.

The trip takes several hours, and Adokas's condition remains stable. They arrive at the Temple of Kib and speak with Jalessa, the highest-ranked priestess. Unfortunately, the injury is beyond her skill as well. She advises them to go to Viskha, a three-day journey away. Sharla and Iriellis convince Jalessa to come with them by pointing out that Adokas's injuries were sustained while doing Kib's work, destroying unnatural creatures.

It is already past nightfall at this point, so Jalessa heals Adokas as well as she can, allowing him to survive through the night. Everyone rests and prepares to head for Viskha.

August 20, Year 3488 (SE 118)

After three days of travel, the party arrive at Viskha. The trip was uneventful, and the combined attention of three clerics (Iriellis, Flossaria and Jalessa) and a druid (Tamat) was enough to keep Adokas alive throughout the duration. It is nearly nightfall when they arrive, and, considering their options, they decide to go to the Temple of Kib and speak with the High Priest of Kib.

They present Adokas before the High Priest, and he tells them that he is indeed capable of healing the halfling. However, such an expenditure of time and power will require a substantial donation to the Temple of Kib - nearly 500 gold pieces. The party consider attempting to haggle, but decide to pay the price without complaint. The High Priest casts his spell, and Adokas is healed.

Monday, December 9, 2013

Session 18: The Fist of Kord, Part 6

August 17, Year 3488 (SE 118)

The party pick the easternmost ledge, closest to their current position, and send Adokas down first. They anchor a rope to the rock nearby using a grappling hook and he climbs down. At the bottom of the ledge is a short passage that leads to a four-way intersection, with a sinkhole directly in the center of the intersection, preventing easy navigation. The rest of the party climb down, and Adokas ties a rope around himself, giving the other end for the party to hold in case he falls. He then shimmies across the walls, exploring the three other passages around the sinkhole.

To the right, the passage opens into a room that ends in another ledge going down. To the left, the passage continues until it reaches a t-intersection. Directly across from where the party entered is a passage that veers to the left into a chamber. Peering down into the sinkhole itself, Adokas's torch doesn't illuminate far enough to see the bottom, but he can see that the hole appears to be filled with some sort of haze or mist. He also catches a glimpse of some sort of movement below, and decides to leave it alone.

Picking the passage directly across from the rest of the party, Adokas soon sees that the room ahead is filled with bats, roosting on the ceiling. As he sneaks forward, the bats begin to get agitated, so he backs off. Conferring with Tamat, the druid tells him that he knows a spell that will calm animals that could be of use in this situation, but the party decide to explore in other directions rather than disturbing the bats.

The group pick the left passage that ends in a tee and send Adokas again. Adokas looks down the left fork of the tee, and see that it's a short passage which connects to another of the ledges they had previously discovered. This discovery allows the rest of the party to get around to his position without having to climb past the sinkhole, so they use this opportunity to regroup.

The right fork of the tee opens into a room filled with spider webs and spiders. The party see several side passages that are blocked with webbing, but there is only one way to follow that doesn't involve hacking through webbing. They follow this direction, which leads them into a large chamber, again filled with spiders and webbing. As they begin to cross the chamber, two giant, monstrous spiders appear out of the darkness ahead of them and attack!

Zedlyn, Adokas, Flossaria, and Tamat charge forward into melee, while Iriellis stays behind them in order to heal and Sharla and P'hla stay back, unable to get a clear shot. Both Zedlyn and Adokas are bitten by the spiders as they fight, but Iriellis' healing keeps them going, and eventually the spiders go down, with Flossaria claiming both killing blows. Tamat identifies the spiders as a breed possessing a paralytic poison, but luckily both Zedlyn and Adokas seem to have fought off its effects.

Adokas works on extracting some of the spiders' venom while the rest of the group explore the area. The discover that two of the webbed-off side passages lead to the two other ledges that they had discovered while exploring the upper level. There are two un-webbed passages at the far end of the room; one to the north and one to the south. Adokas is unsuccessful in extracting the spider venom.

The southern passage opens into a smaller, webbed room - a dead end. This appears to be the lair of the giant spiders, as it is filled with carcasses and scraps. Wary of more spiders waiting in ambush, Sharla conjures up a pair of dancing lights and sends them into the room, but they don't provoke any response. The party advance into the room, and when they are not attacked by anything, they drop their guard and search through the scraps for valuables. The search turns up a pouch of gold coins and a crystal wand. They give the wand to P'hla and share the coins.

Returning to the previous room, they explore the north passage, which leads to a room filled with bones and carcasses, mostly of animals but with a few humanoids mixed in. They again send the ghostly lights in first, but they again provoke no response. Realizing that searching this area would take forever due to the amount of bones and bodies, Iriellis instead casts a spell to detect magic. She uses it to confirm that the wand from the room before is indeed magical, and she also detects something magical under the layer of bone. They pull it out and discover that it's a rope.

Going over their options, the party decide to return to the sinkhole and explore the room full of bats. Adokas and Tamat make their way across the sinkhole, and Tamat casts his spell, which keeps the bats docile as the two adventurers pass. They step into the room, which turns out to be mid-sized and a dead end. Apart from bats and bat guano, there doesn't seem to be anything of value in the room.

They next turn their attention to the sinkhole itself. They tie a torch to a rope and begin lowering it down. This allows them to see that the total depth of the sinkhole is forty feet, and at the bottom are two undead skeletons, reaching up towards the torch. Iriellis's immediate response is to Turn Undead; she charges forward with her holy symbol and drives them back with holy power. The skeletons cower in the corner of the sinkhole as the party decide what to do.

Worried that the mist might have some sort of magical properties that caused the skeletons to animate, they have P'hla cast her Detect Magic spell down into the sinkhole. The skeletons themselves radiate magic, of course, but the mist itself does not. She discovers something else though - at the bottom of the pit is a magical sword. Adokas pelts the skeletons with sling stones from above until they're destroyed, then they head down to retrieve the sword. Apart from the sword, at the bottom of the pit they discover a series of about forty tally marks scratched into the wall - evidently left by the skeletons while they were still alive.

Considering the directions that the lizardfolk could be in, they decide to search the two rooms containing pools of water, as the lizardfolk could easily have passed through underwater passages. The westernmost chamber, closer to the entrance, contains a small, clear pool, only about two feet in depth. Both Adokas and Iriellis strip down and wade in, but their search turns up nothing of interest.


They step into the easternmost pool chamber, and are about to advance when both Zedlyn and Iriellis notice that something is amiss. They realize that two shapes, which on first glance look like plain old boulders, are actually camouflaged giant toads, nearly indistinguishable from the rock. They stop the rest of the party from advancing and retreat to consider their options.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Session 17: The Fist of Kord, Part 5

August 17, Year 3488 (SE 118)

Having decided to ambush the lizardfolk, the party approach the clearing by the lizardfolk lair and prepare themselves. The dead lizardfolk is used as bait, placed near the opposite end of the clearing in order to draw the other lizardfolk out. Sharla conjures up an illusion of a demon using her magic, having it loom over the corpse, and Zedlyn prepares to supplement the illusion with a blood-curdling roar, using his natural gnomish abilities.

Everyone else prepares to attack in various ways. Adokas hides in the bushes near the corpse, ready to assassinate one the lizardfolk with his sling. P'hla stands further back away from the clearing, ready to cast a Sleep spell from a distance. Flossaria, Iriellis, and Tamat fan out across the edges of the clearing and prepare to attack with crossbow, sling, and longbow, respectively.

Ten minutes or so pass as the group waits, when finally a few dark figures appear near the cave's exit. However, a few seconds later, they move back into the cave rather than head out into the ambush. Whether they detected the ambush, they were scared off by the demon, or they have some other motive is unclear. The party continue holding their positions, hoping that the lizardfolk will reappear.

A few minutes later, with the party still hoping for the lizardfolk to emerge, a mysterious and beautiful song begins to emanate from the cave entrance. It seems to pull at the listeners, urging them to step forward towards the cave. Flossaria, Sharla, and Iriellis all resist its influence, but Adokas, Zedlyn, P'hla and Tamat all find themselves unwillingly stepping forward.

Sharla thinks back to her bardic training, and realizes that she's heard of something like this before. There are a multitude of creatures, such as Sirens and Harpies, that are said to have hypnotic songs, but the stories say that they can be countered by another song. As Adokas steps towards the cave, Sharla rushes up to him and sings a hymn of his faith into his ear. It works - the second song draws his attention away from the first, and he suddenly snaps back to awareness.

Meanwhile, the rest of the party are having much less luck. Iriellis is trying to slow or trip P'hla, and while she has some success, P'hla continues to rise and move towards the clearing. Flossaria is trying to stop Tamat, but he brushes off her efforts. His Druidic abilities allow him to step easily through the undergrowth, even while in a daze, and soon he is out in the open, in the clearing, where Flossaria doesn't want to follow. No one is trying to stop Zedlyn, but his short stature and heavy armor combine to make his progress through the bushes very slow.

Flossaria and Adokas begin circling the edge of the clearing, making their way towards the cave entrance, hoping to leap out and stop Tamat right before he reaches the cave. Sharla runs to Zedlyn and tries the same tactic she used on Adokas, this time using a soldiers' marching tune. It works a second time; Zedlyn snaps out of his daze and stops moving towards the cave.

Iriellis is still having no luck, and P'hla escapes her grasp and reaches the edge of the clearing, before Sharla shouts out instructions to Iriellis, telling her to sing to counter the effect. Iriellis, lacking Sharla's training, picks a tavern song at random and sings it into P'hla's ear, and is surprised to find that it works - P'hla recovers her senses, leaving only Tamat still moving forward.

The druid is too fast, and he reaches the cave before Flossaria and Adokas are in position, stepping into the darkness. Sounds of combat and cries of pain emerge from the cave, and Adokas throws a torch towards the entrance. It falls short, but illuminates enough for the group to see several figures attacking Tamat. P'hla casts a Sleep spell into the darkness and most of the figures go down. Tamat has apparently regained his senses during the fight; he rushes out of the cave, bloodied but still standing. He turns back and casts a spell that causes roots and vines to burst out of the cave walls, holding fast the one remaining lizardfolk, then puts an arrow through its throat.

During this chaos, the song has stopped, so everyone regroups, with the clerics healing Tamat. Adokas quietly goes to the cave entrance and finishes off the three sleeping lizardfolk that were caught by P'hla's spell. They decide to press their advantage and head into the cave.

The cave turns out to be a large, sprawling affair with many branching passages. The party move quickly, not stopping for a thorough investigation of any of the areas that they encounter. These areas include a ravine that is apparently filled with bees, which the group avoid, two separate caverns containing large pools of water, a cavern that slopes up to a small opening in the ceiling, and a cavern filled with rat dung, presumably the home of some sort of rat colony.

As they explore the cave, the party pass by four different ledges that drop down to a lower section. They finish their cursory exploration of the upper section, and it yields no signs of the lizardfolk lair, so they decide to descend to the lower section and continue searching.