Session date: Monday, February 5, 2018
Game date: Saturday, March 20, 210 and Saturday, April 10, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35901/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17701/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 6561/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5883/8000
Orehoe, Elf 1, hp 3, xp 240/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 6050/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2952/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 763/4000
Jack, Thief 2, hp 8, xp 1525/2400
The first half of this session was a flashback a few weeks of game time ago to play out the annual auction of magical and esoteric artifacts. The auction was held at the Runcible Trading House in the wealthy quarter of Idalium, as it had been the first year the party attended. That auction had been interrupted by one of the artifacts being stolen from the cellar vault by a ghoul that burrowed its way right through the wall, and now Lord Runcible announced that everyone could be assured that all of the cellar vaults had since been reinforced with iron bars along the walls.
All of the usual suspects were at the auction, a mix of Idalium's wealthiest aristocrats and businessmen with other scruffy adventurers like the party members. There was time to mingle before the start of the auction, and Gulleck and Caryatid made sure to talk up the finer points of the unusual tome that they had placed in the auction. They chatted up Vincent Patrenzi, the gaudy and tacky nouveau riche investor who collected ominous occult artifacts. His interest definitely seemed to be piqued, when they told him that the book had been taken from a coven of witches in some sort of other world.
The auction got underway. Moonpetal's Marauders bid aggressively and won a magical sword that could burst into flame on command, as well as a magical wand that could turn people into other forms. Vincent Patrenzi got into a bidding war for the party's book with Lady Mary Jameson, a young noblewoman fascinated with the occult, and the book finally sold for 66,000 silver shekels, far beyond the 10,000 shekel minimum bid. Father Jed and his band of merry bandits acquired two separate lots of magical potions, and another set of potions went to Sallies Forth, a party composed entirely of magical duplicates of "Psycho" Sally, an unhinged hobbit formerly with Shorty's Sirens. And Gulleck had set greedy eyes upon a pair of magical gauntlets said to bestow the strength of an ogre. Gulleck's player was quite excited to bypass Gulleck's absurd Strength score of 5, so the party bid most of their newly-acquired wealth of the gauntlets, and eventually outbid all the other adventuring parties to acquire the gauntlets for the low, low price of 59,500 silver shekels. (That actually is very low, given the presumed cost to craft such a magical item!)
Having finished with the auction, we jumped forward three weeks to the current date, and rejoined the party on another delve down to the third level of the dungeon below Idalium. They talked briefly to the lonely old stone pillar, and then headed west and north to assault the lair of the wererats. Coming to the door with a large rathole chewed in the bottom, they listened but heard nothing beyond it. The door would not open, so Simon the hobbit slipped on an invisibility ring and crawled through the ragged hole. On the other side he felt blindly in the dark and found a wooden bar holding the door shut. This he removed and let the party in, drawing his sword to provide light. Once some light was shed on the situation, they found that they were in a short hallway leading to another door, with a similar hole chewed near the bottom. A grotesque woven wicker effigy of a giant rat's head was mounted on the inner door. Gulleck strode up and smashed the wicker head to the floor. Apparently responding to the commotion at the door, a sinewy giant rat came angrily through the hole in the door. Gulleck, surprising herself with the unfamiliar strength flowing from her gauntlets, deftly beheaded the rat with the single slash of her axe.
They waited to see if any more rats would be forthcoming, but when no more emerged, Simon repeatd his trick with the invisibility ring and crawled under the door to unbar it from the other side. In the dark, he could hear the shuffling and squeaking of many other rats. I began to declare that he was immediately pounced upon by multiple rats, but was reminded that we had previously established that magical invisibility renders one invisible to all forms of sight, including infravision. Scent was a different story, and the rats grew agitated at the unfamiliar smell, but before they could react Simon had unbarred the door, let the rest of the party in, and drawn his sword for light. There were a couple dozen giant rats slinking around this defiled old temple. The walls were painted over crudely with dreadful images of rats cruelly dominating over cats, dogs, eagles, humans, etc. Filthy shredded nesting material was strewn around the room, and several pieces of expensive-looking jewelry glittered among the filth.
Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells and sent most of the rats into slumber. Gulleck and Meat stepped forward to deal with the few that evaded the magic, and Adrien's demon ferret Norman tore into two of the rats with a horrible savagery that sent spouts of rats' blood fountaining into the air and drenching his mangy fur. While the adventurers were dealing with the giant rats, a door was thrown open at the north end of the room, and four bipedal ratmen burst in.
"How dare you invade the Temple of St. Rathmus!" the lead ratman hissed. "You shall surely die in pain and fear for your impertinence!"
Well, they lunged forward to bite and claw at the adventurers, but Orin read from his scroll of Sleep, and three of the wererats collapsed to the flagstones. Two more wererat reinforcements arrived at the north door and surrounded Meat, snapping at him with slavering jaws. But Adrien drew her magical sword with the hilt engraved with heads of rat and wolf, and it sang as it cut into the flesh of the ratmen. She killed two of them, and then Gulleck killed everyone, the surviving wererat as well as systematically dispatching all of the sleeping wererats and giant rats.
It was late and the party had taken some damage from the wererats, so they quickly gathered up the jewelry in the room, and Caryatid wizard-locked the north door, in hopes that any other treasure would not be plundered before they could return (having learned their lesson from the lost treasure of the Goblin Prince). Then they headed back to the surface with their plunder, which gave them enough experience points that Brother Chase made it to level 3, being promoted to Father Chase by his "supervisors" at his "temporary clerical staffing" chapel.
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