Monday, April 2, 2018

Idalium Game 86: Easy Come, Easy Go!

Session date: November 27, 2017
Game date: Saturday, January 31, 210 to Sunday, February 1, 210

PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35515/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17218/20000   
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6054/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5400/8000

Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5807/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2722/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 520/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1268/2400

It had been a couple of weeks between sessions. Jack had been away celebrating his instant levelling up, but now he was back, and Simon had spent some gold to allow Orin to scribe a Sleep scroll. The party regrouped at the Rusty Lantern to continue their exploration of level three. In the basement of the Rusty Lantern, they met another adventuring party, St. Dwindum's Heroes, gearing up and getting ready to head down into the dungeon. They were also heading to the third level. Father Michael, the nominal although rather meek leader, warned them against the wererats, and the garrulous Brother Randy winked at them and told them to keep an eye out for those black-robed cultists that hung around down there.

The adventurers suited up and climbed down the rope ladder into the buried city of Ancient Idalium. However, they only got as far as the big town square before they were attacked by half a dozen angry goblins, who swore to kill them all to avenge the Goblin Prince. They actually scored a few hits before several of them were killed and Gulleck chased the rest screaming into the mine tunnels to the east. Adrien was quite badly hurt and Brother Chase had to call forth a miracle to heal her of her wounds. They were all a bit demoralized after taking some injuries just a few hundred feet from the entrance to the dungeon, and decided to go back home and try again the next day. Gulleck decided to bring a goblin body with her (I'm not quite sure why). She dragged it back to the rope ladder, but then decided she didn't want to be bothered hauling it up to the Rusty Lantern, so she left it there in the shop's storeroom.

When they returned the next day, the goblin corpse was gone, and in its place was a single beautiful peach. Gulleck stomped on it, squashing it beneath her boot, and thought she saw some wormlike grub crawl from the pulp into a crack in the floorboards. The adventurers resumed their march down to the second level, but in the Temple of Hedonism they found something unusual: the dead body of a young man, lying in a heap in front of the crystal statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level. He was clad in leather armor and wore a bulging backpack. The backpack contained some basic dungeoneering equipment (rope, iron spikes, etc.) and a burlap sack full of about a hundred silver shekels. The coins were swiftly relocated to party member's backpacks, and then the adventurers decided they might as well do a good deed and bring this poor sap back to life.

(I should point out that this was a simple dungeon restocking roll that resulted in unguarded treasure and I improvised the dead thief to make it a little more interesting and make more sense. I didn't expect them to resurrect him!)

They carried the body down to the second level and brought him to the resurrection pool that had revived so many of them before. They tossed him right into the pool fully clothed, and after a moment he came thrashing to the surface in a panic. Meat reached down and pulled the sodden fellow out of the pool. He sat dripping and gasping at the edge of the pool and then asked the party what had happened.

"Well, we found you dead, and now you're alive again," explained Gulleck. "What's your name?"

"I'm Rocco," the young man replied. He told them he was a new recruit to the Thieves' Guild, and he and a few other rookies had been sent down to the dungeon to bring back whatever unguarded loot they could find. Unfortunately, when they tried to pass the crystal statue it had come to life and lunged at him and that was all he could remember.

Caryatid felt sorry for this green kid, and brightly offered, "You ever consider becoming an adventurer's henchman?"

"Uh... I don't know, I hadn't really, but I owe you my life, so..."

"Great! Do you feel lucky?"

"Well, I did just come back to life, so..."

And with smirks on their faces they brought him to the Temple of Fate so he could get "initiated" by spinning on the Wheel of Fortune.

"Fortune?" asked Rocco, confused, as they strapped him onto the great wheel. "Am I going to get rich?"

They spun him on the wheel, raising an enormous clatter. Then he came to a stop and looked around uncertainly.

"Did it work? Am I rich?" he asked, and then his face contorted in a shriek as his body convulsed. His hair grew gray and coarse, and his skin tightened over his face. Finally all that was left was a withered husk, its skin shriveled and stretched, dead eyes bulging and staring. (Caryatid rolled "lose a level" and he failed his saving throw, and since he was only a first level thief, well, easy come, easy go!)

"Well, that was new," murmured Gulleck in shock.

They brought his body with them across the hall to the old abandoned temple that the Goblin Prince had converted into a feast hall, and set the body on top of the long table. The wall behind the altar was still painted with a grotesque portrait of the pompous Goblin Prince, and Gulleck whipped out a piece of chalk and drew a big Snidely Whiplash mustache on his face. This close up, she noticed that there were several layers of paint on the wall: the Goblin Prince's face, the horrible tentacled monster worshipped by the orcs, and then something beneath that. The adventurers took a few minutes to scrape away the paint, and discovered a secret door buried behind the paint. They pried the door open, discovering a hall lined with mosaics of soldiers and farmworkers being healed by the priests of Ancient Idalium. At the end of the hall was a tattered curtain, and behind that was a small alcove containing a plain wooden throne. Leaning against the throne was a tall wooden staff. Brother Chase examined it and said he could feel that it was imbued with powerful healing magic. They touched the staff to the husk that had once been Rocco, but alas, nothing happened. So they abandoned his body on the feast table and headed off, down the stairs to the third level.

In the very first room after passing through the great stone door, the adventurers surprised a group of eight black robed cultists. The cultists were haughty and ordered the adventurers to get lost, and absolutely not to trespass on their territory to the west unless they were bringing the bodies of goblins "or whatever" for their ceremonies.

"Rude!" complained Gulleck.

The cultists stormed off, and the adventurers went south to visit the odd talking stone column, who was glad of the company, but whined when he discovered that the party had not brought him any "shiny stones".

"I should have known it was too good to be true. You're all just like the others, making wonderful promises but once you're gone you forget all about me. But don't worry about me, I'm used to it by now..."

They eventually disengaged themselves from the morose old forgotten god, and headed east, down the hall towards where they had fought the ratmen last time. They opened a door opposite that room and found another small shrine with an eerie and disturbing idol atop an altar. Jack stepped forward to examine the altar, and Gulleck took a few moments to smash the freaky idol just on principle, but the next moment they were alarmed to discover that everything they spoke came out backwards! This lasted for the rest of the day.

East of these two shrines the hallway opened up into a large natural cavern. There was about 20 feet of a rocky, pebbly beach, and then a vast and immense underground lake that stretched out as far as the light from Simon's sword could illuminate. In the distance there was the sound of rushing and splashing water, but from where they stood the lake seemed almost unnaturally still and placid. They explored the beach in each direction and found that eventually the cavern walls converged with the sea.

Caryatid, apparently still taken aback by the sudden loss of her short-lived henchman, declared that "Henceforth, this rocky beach shall be known as Rocco Beach."

And having no boat and seeing no other exits apart from entering the water, the party returned to the hallway and headed west past the entry hall, now that the cultists had been gone for some time. They came to a four way intersection and explored to the north, eventually finding a stout wooden door with a giant mousehole (maybe two feet high) gnawed through at the bottom. This made them suspect "ratmen!" but they heard nothing and Simon used his mind-reading medallion and didn't detect any presences on the other side of the door. There were discussions of making Molotov cocktails and rolling them through the hole, Gulleck being reduced to playing charades and miming "torch". Eventually, they left this door for later, and continued along the hall exploring.

They found a series of rooms that seemed to be part of a theatre. There was a room full of smiling masks hanging on the walls, and another full of frowning masks. There was a room full of costumes of all different sorts, and a room cluttered with all sorts of miscellaneous objects, including a variety of fake weapons.

"Props to me!" joked Simon.

But it was late and they didn't feel like searching the room, so they returned to the entry hall, ignoring the needy whine of the stone column, and went back to the Rusty Lantern, with no treasure apart from the bag of silver they had taken from the ill-fated Rocco.

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