Session date: Monday, February 6, 2017
Game date: Saturday, June 7, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 13399/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 14917/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 2, hp 6, xp 3687/4000
Adrien, Fighter 2, hp 6, xp 2379/4000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5024/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 1793/3000
Kevon, Fighter 1, hp 5, xp 0/2000
Debbi, Magic-user 1, hp 6, xp 0/2500
Another kind of aimless session, but that's the way some of them are in a "beer and pretzels" game. Adrian's player decided to roll up a retainer, and settled on a magic-user named Debbi, who had the distinction of being the smartest character in the party, and the only one able to comprehend the Ancient Idalian language. Simon's player rolled up a fighter named Kevon to replace the dearly departed/melted Remus.
The party proceeded down to the second level of the dungeon, intent on filling in the few unexplored sectors of their map. They stopped in the small Temple of Chance in order to "initiate" the new party members by giving them a spin on the magical wheel of fortune. Debbi was strapped to the wheel and spun, and ended up sneezing uncontrollable for the rest of the day, eliminating any chance of surprise. Kevon received a permanent +1 to his charisma.
Now that they had a party member who could understand Ancient Idalian, they proceeded to the room with the magical painting of a court jester. When he came to animated life on the wall and spoke to them, Debbi was able to understand him and translate. He said his name was Puntilio. He had been alone in this room for so long since the day of the disaster, when the owner of the apartment had fled the city. Being immobile, he didn't have a whole lot of information about the dungeon, so they left him, ignoring his plaintive cries of "Come back! You're the first person I've been able to talk to in decades!"
They wandered around the nearby hallways and poked their heads into a couple of rooms that appeared to be infested with giant centipedes. No one felt like tangling with them, and Simon couldn't smell any gold in the rooms, so they moved on. Then they came to a room that reeked of animal sweat and waste. Simon's mindreading medallion detected the presence of multiple primitive minds in the room. They dithered over what to do, and then Debbi sneezed loudly and repeatedly, and a great hooting and chattering went up in the room, and they were suddenly set upon by eight giant baboons wielding clubs made of sticks and femur bones. Well, Gulleck and Simon used their magical rings of animal control to sow chaos in the group of baboons, who spent more time fighting each other than the party. Caryatid used her new Sleep spell to eliminate the rest of them.
The party found a small golden cup in the room of baboons, so they took it and moved on. They studied their maps for a while, puzzling over a large blank area in the middle of the page, and decided to spend some time searching for secret doors. Luck was indeed with them, for they found that one of the torch sconces could be manipulated in a way that caused a panel of the wall to swing open. Behind the secret door was a dark and dingy corridor that felt very much "backstage" from the main hallways and rooms of this level. The group cautiously explored the secret passage, noticing the backs of several other secret doors along the walls as they went.
Eventually, they came to a plain wooden door, behind which they heard the voices of children! It seems they had found the secret hideout of the urchins who live in the dungeon. Gulleck knocked on the door, and there was a great commotion and then hush behind the door. He called out, "Don't worry, it's just Gulleck and his friends!" There were murmurs and whispers, and then the door was opened and the party was invited into the urchins' hideout. The room looked like it had once been some sort of command center, almost like a secret bunker, but was now the common room of the urchin gang. A big table filled much of the room, and boxes and crate full of presumably stolen food and other goods lined the walls. The adventurers talked with the urchins at some length, warning them against the orcs, and even more so the goblins. "Just remember one thing. Don't ever eat goblin food. It'll turn you into one of them!" Most of the urchins promised, but a few seemed skeptical. "I had an apple from the goblins a week or two ago, and it didn't hurt me! They're not that bad, the goblins. I don't think they would do anything mean to us."
The adventurers also tried to warn the urchins to stay away from Caryatid the Green, but the urchins said they knew all about that scary lady. In fact, they had a secret passage that went right into her apartment! The adventurers asked the urchins to show them, and they escorted them through another dusty back passage to a door which opened into the hallway in the back of the old wizard's rooms, between a bedroom and an alchemical lab.
"Well, listen, don't go in there, and you know what, just stay away from her altogether. She's got an actual demon in there!" Just to make sure that no trouble came to the urchins, Caryatid cast wizard lock on the secret door before they took their leave of the urchins and made their way back out of the dungeon.
No comments:
Post a Comment