Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Session #11 - The Big Sleep - Year 4433, Day 100-105

Baum did not adventure with the group this time.  Instead,studying the keep’s historical notes and tomes kept him busy.  All will be revealed once the party deals with the aftermath of session #11!

The Castellan’s nephew arrived from Bard’s Gate by caravan a day prior (Year 4433 Day 115).  A seasoned, disciplined warrior, Fardalf Wydigast, immediately offered his sword in arms to his uncle, the Castellan, as it was obvious to him evil was all about. The Castellan introduced Fardalf to his heroes disclosing everything.  Fardalf thereby joined the band representing the Castellan. 

With Fardalf accompanying and Baum buried in books, the party descended below the keep.  They continued past the teleport chamber.  One of the elves found a secret door on the northern wall.  As Chopper and the others took a closer look a Roper abomination found them.  Its 50 foot strength-draining tentacled arms flung out from the darkness and snatched various party members dragging them them into its hungry maw.  The strength of the monster was overwhelming.  This is until Morgan pulled out his Wand of Enfeeblement and zapped the thing.  Luckily the magic was great and the roper succumbed collapsing to the ground in a heap of gelatine weakness.  Chopper leap for the helpless creature, blade flaming and he gutted it.  If not for the miraculous wand, some of them would have died for sure.

After the battle, they retreated to Ogden’s secret base.  They had to restore strength drained by the Roper. After many hours they returned to the scene.  Not a moment later, Rothaga was attacked by some invisible creature.  Nilbog cast detect magic revealing its thousand teeth.  The wizards took the thing down with magic missiles moments later.  They then turned their attention back to the secret door.  

Nilbog detected an evil presence pacing back and forth about 80 feet to the north and twenty feet down.  Chopper opened the secret door.  They found a narrow hallway of descending stairs beyond.  They proceeded carefully until discovering an undead spectre chanting in front of a statue of the evil god Set.  There was also a smaller 2 foot pillar in front of the statue.  The pillar was made of the same black rock similar to what they found inlaid all throughout Blueheart’s tomb.  The spectre chanted: “Set, Set, Merchant of Death, let us all feel your soul chilling breath!”  Interrupted, it turned to them and let out a frightening scream and attacked Chopper.  Chopper resisted the fear and the party took it out. They then destroyed the statue but could not deface the 2 foot pillar of Necrostone.

They continued past the Roper lair.  They detected fresh air coming from the southern passage and found it led to an open chimney to the surface some 120’ up.  Weak light filtered down to the floor littered with debris and bones.  They searched for an hour, considered climbing up but instead turned their attention to the southern passage.

That other passage led to deeper caverns.  Now more and more phosphorescent fungi populated the walls.  The light is not enough for humans to see per se, but enough to get a sense of the extent of caverns and movements and the like.  The elves see perfectly up to 90’ when this glowing light source is present.

Continuing downward to the sound of an underground river, they found another massive cavern.  A 20 wide deep river ran through the cavern with no bridge or means of crossing to be seen. Water flows north to south.  The party had enough time to see the extent of the cavern, probe the water depth, and for Chopper to stumble upon some sort of fleshy gibbering crawly thing.  This is about when they realized the structure across the river was the grand entrance to the lair of the Red Masked Orcs.  

The arrows did not begin all at once, but when they began only more and more came.  The orcs had murder holes at almost every possible location in the cave wall across the river.  The party braced themselves for battle, knocking away this or that arrow.  Four cave trolls emerged from the entrance of the orc lair.  The trolls didn’t stop at the edge of the river; they kept coming.  This is about when Fardalf actually tried blocking an arrow with his neck!  A moment later Nilbog’s reassuring hands pulled it out of his neck in one smooth motion.  

So here is the situation, there are possibly twenty orcs shooting arrows, four massive pissed-off regenerating cave trolls already across the river, and a gibbering mound of flesh thing just coming around the corner behind them.  This is when Morgan cast an all-time epic sleep spell.  All the orcs dropped.  The trolls dropped.  The gibbering thing dropped.  The humans dropped.  Morgan set the wake condition to be Morgan saying one’s name.  They quickly awoke the humans in the party and then rather than celebrate, Morgan worried, he knew the range and scope of his spell was massive and likely included all persons in the keep.  Nilbog senses Macrobius knows the keep sleeps.  

What the party does from here we will find out in session #12.





4/5/14

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