Session date: Monday, July 25, 2016
Game date: Saturday, January 18, 209
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 3, hp 16, xp 6081/8000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 9926/17000
Tyrriel, Elf 2, hp 7, xp 6103/8000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11559/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1049/2000
Retainers:
Father Jibber, Cleric 3, hp 16, xp 3126/6000
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3345/4000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 2, hp 4, xp 2536/5000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 35/1500
It had been a long while since we got the entire roster of players together for a game. A fair amount of time was spent socializing, bantering, and catching up Tod and Tyrriel's players on the recent events of the campaign.
The first portion of the session involved taking care of some investigations in the surface of the Idalium. The party travelled to the crooked and steep streets of The Steps to visit the elderly sage, Professor Zinn. The professor greeted them as usual in his 5th floor apartment overlooking the city. He listened to their description of the shadowy beings with interest and consulted "the usual references, Tobin's Spirit Guide..." He told them that there were reports of creatures like these, entities of darkness itself, invulnerable to ordinary steel and capable of sapping one's very bodily strength with a touch. Contrary to their expectations, he told them that these creatures were not to be considered the undead like the skeletons and ghouls they had encountered before, but something else.
The group had a long discussion about how to pull off a "heist" and extract the idol and associated treasures without engaging the shadows, if at all possible. Some sort of leather harness would need to be commissioned to wrap around the gilded statue, and a winch would be needed at the top of the shaft. Later that they visited a leatherworker who supplied teamsters and dockworkers, and commissioned a custom harness that would meet their needs.
They next inquired at the Runcible Trading House which had hosted a magical auction the previous year. There had been a book of ancient religions of Idalium that they wanted to inquire after, but Lord Runcible informed them it had been auctioned to a wealthy landowner and when they made inquiries at his manor, they were told he was out of town inspecting his farms and would not return for at least a week.
They visited the Great Cathedral to ask about the shadows, and Father Merrimoon corroborated Professor Zinn's belief that these shadowy creatures were something different from undead, and the prayers of Father Jibber and Brother Pike were unlikely to influence them.
Finally, they descended into the dungeon in search of adventure and treasure. Realizing it was near the full moon, the idea was mooted to visit the Goblin Market and that met with applause from everyone except Caryatid, who viewed it as a big junk sale. Everything went well for them. They met a flock of stirges in the town square which were sleepy and let them pass. In the temple of hedonism they had the misfortune of rolling TWO random encounters while the party was split trying to get past the crystal statue that only lets you pass if you are wearing the official toga of the cult. They don't have sufficient togas for everyone, so they have to pass in batches. Tod, Jibber, and Wilhelm were still upstairs when they encountered a trio of angry orcs, but they merely slipped past the statue and taunted the orcs to run towards them, where they were stoutly punched by the statue. Downstairs, the rest of the party encountered two large and fierce baboons in the temple's inner sanctum, but Gulleck used his magical ring of animal control to compel one baboon to attack the other.
Through the second level halls and into the caverns they passed. They met an suspicious gang of merchants who were looking for the goblins as well. Tod and Tyrriel picked an unnecessary fight with the traders, and just as things started to heat up and blades were drawn, Tyrriel cast a wave of magical slumber across the men. She relieved them of a couple of nice jewels and left them a bottle of wine with a note upon which she wrote, "Think next time!"
At the Goblin Market, they reluctantly handed over their weapons at the entrance to the bizarre lanky tall goblins that looked down on them with baleful bulbous eyes and welcomed them to the market in their eerie hooting voices. The market was quieter than the last time they had been here. Four of the placid and spacey "hippies" were making purchases at one of the table. A woman dressed in black robes and an opaque black veil that hung in front of her face from a wide-brimmed hat sat at a table behind an assortment of vials and flasks. Tyrriel spoke with this woman and learned that she lived on an island in the middle of the underground sea one level below this place, and she made potions. Tyrriel took the opportunity to sell some of the strange fluids and components she had been collecting over the months: venom sacs from a giant spider, the tentacles from a carrion crawler, blood from the mysterious basin in the temple the gnomes were currently digging within. She bought an invisibility potion from the mysterious veiled witch.
As before, there were goblins selling strange and slightly unsettling things, as well. A collection of bone relics of dubious saints and heretics; a number of decapitated and meticulously preserved heads of sprites, wrapped in gauze made of spider silk (Tyrriel traded three giant hawk feathers for three of these heads); and a sad little stuffed bunny rabbit made of velveteen, slightly singed and scorched looking. Father Jibber was persuaded by Tod to buy it from the hobgoblin dealer for a kiss from a priest, which the goblin found so scandalizingly amusing that he could not refuse.
Around this point the traders that they had encountered in the caverns stumbled in, looking grouchy and out of sorts. They were carrying bags of rusty old swords and spears to sell to the goblins. The party decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and crept out of the market before they were noticed.
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