Present:
- Phoebe Lacrosse. Human Barbarian from Pugtown – Andrew
- Griza Muso. Human Thief from Lakeside – Jeff
- Balder Dash. Gnome Wizard from Toluene - Jamie
- Bush Tucker. Human Rogue from Spite Anti - Darryl
- Red Feuersturm. Human Temple Fighter of Hob from Toluene - Chris
- MARMALADING: Malcom Gandhi. Gnome Thief from Brian – Kevin
- Napolean Twig. Elf Priest of Caribou Gorn from Pugtown - Ian
- Joe Manco. Human Fighter from Toluene – Shane
- Galena Alfdis. Elf Priestess of Vingt et Un from Palantir - Steven
by Jeff
... continued from part 1
"Crikey" stated Bush, "That's a lovely knife"
"Joe" continued Bush, "You may as well take my bow and the magic arrows, I'll be using this!"
A quick search of the room revealed no additional secrets or items of interest, and we continued to the end of the landing and down the stairs.
 |
| A pentagram was carved into the floor |
The stairs ended at yet another room carved out of the rock. This room was also square, but contained a large pentagram carved into the stone floor. Strange figures and imaged were worked into the stone walls, and on the far side of the pentagram, another large opening could be seen leading on.
"Not liking the look of that pentagram" worried Galena.
"No traps around the bottom of the stairs" reported Griza, stepping into the room.
Immediately Griza stepped onto the floor of the room, and not even near the pentagram, a white light shone up from the pentagram shape. Starting at the nearest face, the light raced along the lines defining the pentagram until the shape was totally lit, illuminating the room in a bright glow. Leaping back out of the room with a startled exclamation, Griza prepared for some form of attack. As Griza's foot left the floor, the colour of the light flickered from white to a light blue, but continuing to glow. Everything was now illuminated in a soft blue glow.
 |
| The blue light reflected strangely from Balders face |
"Hey" noted Joe, "Check out Balders face"
The blue light closely matched the blue colour of the speckles that could occasionally be seen in Balder's skin, and right now his face was twinkling as the blue speckles reflected the blue light from the floor. [This was the same blue colour of the strange egg from many adventures ago that had infected Balder, and was apparently the cause of his current "health" issues]
"That's not weird at all" mumbled Bush.
"Allow me" offered Balder, stepping down into the room.
"Not on the pentagram!" warned Phoebe.
The blue glow from the pentagram remained, and Balder, closely followed by the rest of the party, circled slowly around the edge of the room to the far door. A short passage led forward to a four-way intersection. Another pentagram was carved into the floor of the intersection, but this time there would be no circling around it. It filled the whole intersection.
"I'm sensing undead ahead" whispered Galena.
Griza made his way to the front and crouched down just before the intersection.
"Yup, and some form of magical trap right here" he reported.
"But I don't sense any magic here?" Balder questioned.
"No option" noted Phoebe, stepping boldly onto the middle of the pentagram.
Standing still in the middle of the pentagram, Phoebe cast her senses out along the three passages leading away. Nothing from the left, nothing from straight ahead, but some noises from the right. Peering down the right-hand passage into the darkness, sword held ready, Phoebe spotted some movement. The glitter of light reflecting from two large swords emerged from the gloom.
"Back" Phoebe called, "Back to the large pentagram room. And set for attackers!"
Everyone pulled back to the large pentagram room and spread out around the passage opening. Two large skeletons, wearing chain mail armour and wielding long swords lumbered forward towards us.
"Get thee hence!" commanded Galena, attempting to turn these foul undead. Nope.
Balder cast a Dispel Magic, hoping to affect these creatures. Nope.
Red, wielding his mighty two-handed mace, laughed happily, and stepped forward to engage one.
Phoebe stepped in beside him, while Joe and Bush engaged the second skeletal warrior.
Making use of the space in the large room, and that the attacking skeletal warriors were confined by the narrow passage, the party felt that the fight would be quickly over. Only two of them after all.
Oh, how the Gods laughed!
Red swung his mighty magical mace, which carved through the air and swished over the skeletons head.
Phoebe struck, but her bladed weapon was only minimally effective.
[Bladed weapons only deal half-damage to skeletons!]
Joe's sword crunched satisfactorily into his target, but the skeleton barely noticed.
Bush, with a crazed cackle, swung his new knife with skill and precision, shearing between its ribs.
But neither Joe nor Bush dealt any damage to the creature!
[Joe's sword isn't magical, and the half damage effect against chain mail armour negated Bush's attack]
From behind, Balder cast his "Enchanted Weapon" spell on Joe, effectively creating a temporary magical weapon, while Bush stepped out of combat muttering angrily. Tabatha, the half-elven warrior we had rescued from the Massimo Island, stepped forward to take his place. She was wearing chain mail armour and carrying a glittering long sword. Surely this would be better now?
"There are two more of those things behind the others" called Griza, spotting two more down the short passage behind the first two skeletal warriors, and stepping forward to support Joe, "Hit them already!"
The battle raged on.
Joe, engaging the first skeleton while Tabatha and Griza moved forward to join him, attempted to Dodge, to minimise his chances of being hit. [A Dodge will win on a drawn roll during the opposed rolls of a melee combat scenario. A successful Dodge obviously avoids any chance of damage] But he failed his Dodge, and the creature struck him, dealing 4 damage after the effect of his chain mail armour was deducted. He also had to make a saving throw against Divine magic. [Shane just failed his saving throw by 1 point, but spent 1 Luck point to increase his saving roll to be a success. One never wants to fail a save against undead creatures if it can be helped!]
As a result of Joe being hit, he was forced back into the large pentagram room, and a third of the creatures stepped out of the corridor and engaged the party. Tabatha and Griza switched targets to the third creature, Joe batted on alone against the second, while Red and Phoebe pummelled at the first.
Red and Phoebe quickly took their opponent out, and the fourth warrior took its place.
Three combats were occurring in the room now.
There was no way the previous instruction to avoid the blue glowing pentagram could be followed. Combatants were swarming around each other all across the room. The non-combatants had stepped back to the original entrance and were cheering the combatants on. The tide of the battle swayed first one way and then the other. The party dealt a reasonable amount of damage in the next melee round, although Griza's poisoned knife was proving minimally effective. The poison had no effect whatsoever, and the D6 cutting damage was halved due to the bony nature of the skeletons.
In the next melee round, Red was hit, taking 1 point of damage, but fortunately making his saving roll.
Phoebe was successful though, her sword breaking out a bunch of bones from the skeleton.
Tabatha was also hit, but the skeleton's blow wasn't sufficient to penetrate her armour.
But Joe, on his own against his opponent, had switched back to full attacks and finally managed a decent blow against the skeletal warrior. Even halved, his mighty blow cleaved its skull clean off and a second skeleton crumbled to the floor.
"YEAH" cheered Bush from the rear.
During the next melee round, Phoebe and Red both scored hits against their skeletal opponent, and it collapsed to the ground with a crash, bones shattering and bouncing across the floor of the room. Tabatha again took a minor blow, but again her armour saved her from actual damage. Unfortunately, Griza and Joe both missed their attacks against Tabatha's opponent. "Great elp vou lot are" muttered Tabatha as she readied for the next exchange of blows, relieved that both Phoebe and Joe were stepping in to assist. Just one of the nasty warriors left to defeat.
 |
The Demise of Tabatha (npc)
|
In the next melee round, Tabatha was struck with a critical hit [
Richard rolled a 1 for the skeleton's attack] and collapsed to the ground, dead! [
The immediate damage, boosted by the critical roll effect, even mitigated by her 3-point armour reduction, knocked her into unconsciousness. She wasn't bleeding, so didn't need to roll against Constitution (or die), but she failed her saving roll against the undead effect] Her body quickly aged, her skin drying out and withering, her face collapsing in on itself and stretching tightly across her skull, then crumbling to dust leaving just a skeleton inside her chain mail armour. Her skeletal fingers still clutched her magical long sword, and her large shield lay discarded beside her body.
Stepping over Tabatha's body, Phoebe took the primary attack role for the next melee round. [Primary attacker engages with the opponent, leaving any secondary attackers to attack with a bonus roll (two rolls, take the most advantageous result). Good news when you outnumber your opposition, but not so good if they outnumber you and can get bonus attacks against the party!]
Griza withdrew from the combat and joined Bush at the rear.
Phoebe, Red, and Joe all scored hits against the last skeletal warrior, and it was destroyed.
"Take that ya mangy undead monsters" yelled Galena happily.
As the bones clattered to the floor, Balder again heard a voice in his head.
"BALDER .... JOIN ME" it called, "YOU ARE CLOSE NOW"
Joe gathered up Tabatha's long sword, Red spoke a few words, Galena shed a few tears, and then the party were off, forward to the intersection with the pentagram symbol. A quick foray to the left and right found a small room at the end of a short passage each way. Each room had two alcoves, presumably where the skeletal warriors had waited, but nothing else of interest.
Only one passage remained, straight ahead. No doubt our great battle had alerted whatever lay ahead to our presence, but gripping our weapons tightly, and straining our senses for any indication of danger, we boldly advanced down the dark passage.
 |
| The black sarcophagus dominated the room |
In fact, the passage was quite short, maybe ten meters, and then it discharged into a large rectangular room hewn from the stone. A large black obsidian sarcophagus dominated the centre of the room, resting on an elevated stone table, its lid very obviously ajar. Symbols of CANKER were carved into the stone and scrawled across the walls and floor in what appeared to be blood. The pungent smell of incense drifted past us in the passage,
"Undead" noted Galena.
"Yup, I totally agree" confirmed Red.
The tracking compass, attuned to the amulet of Simeon Massimo, now known to be a vampire, pointed unerringly at the sarcophagus. Phoebe stepped cautiously forward into the room.
"Woosh"
Torches in scones around the four walls burst into flame, and a flickering red glow lit up the room. The red light glinted ominously from the shiny obsidian sarcophagus, highlighting the ajar lid.
"I want to cut something" yelled Bush pushing forward, caressing his new knife lovingly.
"Hold on" commanded Phoebe, "There's nothing to cut yet"
"Maybe you" leered Bush menacingly, waving his knife in Phoebe's face.
But Galena calmed Bush down with a gentle word, stepped forward with a vial of Holy water, and upended it over the side of the sarcophagus, without even looking in.
A loud sizzling noise emerged from the sarcophagus, and a cloud of stinking vapour bubbled up and spread across the ceiling before slowly dissipating. Before it had even stopped discharging vapour, Bush had leapt up onto the stone table, leaned over the side of the sarcophagus, and thrust in his knife.
"Take that" he yelled, then stiffened and slowly toppled backwards off the table to crumple in a heap on the floor, unconscious. Balder quickly stepped forward and kicked the knife out of Bush's hand, but as his boot connected and sent the knife skittering across the floor, a sharp pain lanced his foot.
[1 point of damage to Balder due to contact with the knife]
"Bloody hell" Balder winced, "And I didn't even touch the thing"
Phoebe leapt up onto the table and peered into the sarcophagus. A skeleton rested there, Simeon's amulet draped around its neck and a bracelet wrapped around its radius and ulna bones.
Red offered to torch the body, but Phoebe took one of the wooden stakes and drove it repeatedly through the body, especially in the vicinity of where the heart should have been. The bones crumbled to pieces. Reaching into the sarcophagus, Phoebe grabbed the amulet and the bracelet and jumped off the table.
 |
| The bracelet rested on Simeon's robes |
Balder cast a Detect magic spell.
"Oh" he exclaimed, "The three amulets are no longer magical. But that bracelet is"
"That clinches it" Phoebe declared, "Simion is dead"
"Well, that's torn it" stated Griza, "Thursa wanted him bought back alive"
"Sigh. No magical item reward then" grumbled Napolean.
"Let's take back some evidence" suggested Bush, having just revived from his unconscious state.
"Oooohh" he Bush, "I feel terrible. What happened, and where's my knife?"
Spotting his knife on the floor in the corner of the room, Bush scrambled over to it and clutched it to his chest. "Ahhhh" he sighed happily. Then he leapt up to his feet, bounded over to the table, sprung up onto it and hacked off the skull from the rest of the skeleton. Holding the skull up in the air and staring into its eye sockets, he declared "We'll take this back to Thursa!"
Galena confirmed that the strong sense of Undead previously here in the room was much reduced, if not gone altogether. There was no exit from this sarcophagus chamber, apart from the passage we had arrived through, so a thorough search was undertaken. Sure enough, a secret door was discovered in the far-right corner of the room (from the entrance) and Griza began a scan for traps.
"Magical trap" Griza confirmed.
"Allow me" offered Balder.
Griza spotted three small holes through the door panel, a gaseous form sneaky exit, and plugged them up. Everyone then cleared out of the room and Balder cast a Dispel Magic on the door. That seemed to do the trick [A successful opposed roll of Balder's skill at level 3 spells vs. the caster's skill at the level 2 Traps spell. Balder got a larger margin below his skill level, yay] and Griza opened the door.
A short passage led off to the bottom of a shaft, where a series of metal rungs protruding from the stone formed a ladder leading up. The sweet smell of incense lingered in the air here, and Galena confirmed there was still no sense of Undead. The shaft was about four metres in height and led to a stone landing and yet another passage leading off into darkness. This passage was long, very long. We cautiously moved forward along the passage, 25 metres, 50 metres, 150 metres, 200 metres.
Then we came to an old iron portcullis that blocked the passage. The flickering of distant torches lit the passage ahead, but on the other side of the portcullis. Griza carefully checked the bars, the passage floor, walls, and roof overhead.
"No sign of traps" he concluded.
Phoebe and Joe each took a grip on the lower bars of portcullis and lifted. With much effort and strain, the old portcullis creaked and groaned but eventually lifted with load scraping and graunching noises. Jamming the portcullis open, everyone scurried through to the other side.
The passage ran on for about five metres, then turned right and ran straight ahead. Torches were mounted along each side of the passage, their flames casting odd flickering shadows across the walls as we passed.
"Careful" called Galena, "I'm sensing Undead here now"
"Look" pointed out Joe, "My shadow isn't me"
Joe had noticed that our shadows cast by the torchlight weren't moving in time with us, in fact they were different shapes and numbers altogether. These were shadows of much larger things than us! This discovery didn't bode well. "Time for some healing" decided Napolean.
Napolean cast a couple of Cure's on Joe, one of our key fighters.
Balder was feeling quite unwell. The atmosphere of the tunnels was getting to him, or perhaps it was the Undead presence that pervaded this unholy place that was influencing him. Red cast a Transfer spell, transferring magic points from his reserve to Balder.
[Chris was about to leave for the night, so wanted to make sure we had magic power to deal with whatever came up next in this section of the adventure. Joe and Phoebe would be the only real fighters left, hence the healing. Balder had also been having his Strength stat. reduced by Richard (DM) as a result of circumstances unknown to the party. In fact, Balder had just lost another point of Strength, and was thus suffering from the effects of physical degradation]
 |
| A strange Shadow attacked Griza |
Setting off down the passage again, we were soon "surprised" as one of the strange shadows actually peeled off the wall and launched itself at Griza [
I rolled the worst Luck roll! The strange creature easily struck Griza, doing 4 points of physical damage and requiring Jeff to make a saving throw against divine magic, which fortunately was successful]
Galena hastily called on the powers of her God, Vingt et Un, successfully Turning the shadow creature from its attack. Griza shook off whatever nasty effect would have befallen him, and everyone rushed forward along the passage.
Galena managed to keep the Shadows at bay behind us. After another two-hundred metres or so, we arrived at the end of the passage. Metal rungs protruded from the wall, with a shaft rising up above us to a closed wooded trapdoor.
Griza clambered up first, checking for traps on the trapdoor (clear) and dropped back down to allow Phoebe to climb up and fling it open. The trapdoor opened into a storage room cluttered with domestic supplies and lots of other "stuff". A stair led upwards, a carved stone archway opened into another room on our right, and a closed wooden doorway stood in front of us.
"JOIN ME" reverberated into Balders head, "YOU ARE CLOSE NOW"
Balder staggered over towards the archway, which Galena noted did not have any Undead sense beyond and led everyone through the arch into a cold chamber adorned with religious symbols and strange implements of torture. A blood-stained table stood in the centre of the room. Balder staggered forward and flung himself to the ground in front of the table.
"Ewww" exclaimed Galena, "This is a shrine to CANKER"
But there was nothing much of interest, and certainly no magical treasure, so we dragged Balder out into the storeroom and checked out the stairs.
...
The smells of cooking drifted down the stairs from the room above. But nice smells this time.
"Another undead creature cooking?" wondered Phoebe.
"Smells too good" noted Bush, "Definitely a Sheila up there"
Assuming that our element of surprise had been lost by the previous battle and noise, if we ever had the element of surprise, we rushed up the stairs into the kitchen. A well-appointed kitchen, in a nice setting. Sunlight poured in through the large windows, which looked out over a garden with some part of the city on the far side of a tall stone wall. An older woman was standing at the stove stirring something in a large pot. She turned towards us. Holy symbols of Canker clattered from around her neck
"Welcome Balder" she stated, "I am Gabriella Massimo, the wife of Simeon"
"Ah, hello" replied Balder, "So not a vampire I take it"
"Definitely not" she responded.
[At this point Richard had everyone make a saving through against arcane magic.
Surprisingly, and probably fortunately, everyone succeeded]
"I see you are carrying my knife" she noted, gesturing at Bush.
"It will not work against me, but maybe you should try it on one of your friends" she commanded.
[At this point Richard made Darryl make a saving throw against arcane magic.
Surprisingly, and probably fortunately, everyone succeeded]
Balder steps forward. He feels a familiarity towards this woman and wants to protect her from any harm that might be directed towards her. But he is also conflicted. Is this not a follower, even a priestess, of Canker, one of the evilest of evil gods, the purveyor of pain and suffering?
"Fuck it" he thinks to himself and .....
