Session date: Monday, July 10, 2017
Game date: Sunday, October 12, 209
PCs:
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 16543/20000
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5391/8000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 5357/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 4625/8000
Retainers:
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2434/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 274/4000
Debbi, Magic-user 1, hp 6, xp 537/2500
It had been a month in real time since our last gaming session, and in our last exciting episode, Gulleck had touched a magical statue, mistakenly assuming that the warning against touching it twice only applied to touched from the same person, and was struck dead. I relaxed our usual rule of having as much time between sessions pass in the campaign world as in real time, and we picked up where we left off, the very next day in the campaign world.
Gulleck's body had been stealthily moved by wheelbarrow to his apartment and stiffly laid in his bed. The players discussed their options. There was the possibility of going to the Great Cathedral and having him raised from the dead again, but 1) it wasn't clear that they could afford it, and 2) it had been such a rigmarole last time having to go on a quest across the wilderness for the Church. As far as anyone knew, only the Great Church had clerics powerful enough to raise someone from death, so none of the lesser chapels and obscure cults dotted throughout the city would be able to help. There was always the option of rolling up a new PC, or converting Meat to a PC, but Gulleck's player did like his character and preferred to keep playing as Gulleck if possible.
So, the players remembered that deep in the caverns to the east of the second dungeon level there was an eternal flame that, by heating the peculiar stone of the cave it burned within, produced a magical elixir of life. Roughly a year ago, the adventurers had retrieved a sample of this elixir for the dying Lord Dinsdale, and when he sipped it he was transformed, rejuvenated into a completely new man. And so, they made preparations to return to the caverns in search of this elixir for Gulleck (hoping it would work on a dead man just as well as a dying one). Gulleck's player made Meat his temporary PC for the day (and so Meat received full experience at the end rather than the usual half).
They descended into the ruins of Ancient Idalium and then stood in the town square not far from the entrance, puzzling over the scrawled annotations on their maps. "Floam? Potty? I can't read any of this!" Eventually they pieced their many fragmented pages together and made their way down to the second level. They encountered a quartet of venomous cobras on the way, but their animal control rings made swift work of them. The goblin guards outside the Goblin Prince's lair were hostile and aggressive and would not let the adventurers pass, so rather than risking a fight with the entire retinue of the Goblin Prince, the party took a longer way to the caverns.
While in the caves, they decided to explore a few areas that their maps indicated they had not previously investigated. A narrow cave tunnel led to a round chamber where strange pinpoints of light sparkled on the ceiling like stars. Simon thought he could see what looked like human bodies on the ceiling just at the edge of the light from his sword, though how they stayed up there was a mystery. The adventurers cautiously stepped into the chamber for a better look. Suddenly, the stars started to spiral and swirl disorientingly and everyone's stomach flipped as something very odd happened. Everyone felt a strange tugging from above, almost as if the ceiling was in fact the ground. Those in metal armor felt their shoulders pressing into their armor, but it seemed that the weight of the armor was sufficient to keep them anchored to the ground. But Debbi and Caryatid found themselves floating off the ground, slowly at first but with increasing acceleration.
Meat lunged out and grabbed Debbi around the waist, holding her back from the force that was lifting her away. Orin tried to grab Caryatid but fumbled a dexterity check, and Caryatid sailed upwards, smashing into the ceiling some thirty feet above in a very uncomfortable way. She found that the force that had pulled her to the ceiling was much stronger here, and it was all she could do to inch herself along the ceiling, while she hung thirty feet above the ground and her companions below. She struggled to pull herself over to the nearby bodies. They were in poor shape and mostly skeletal, but they had clearly been adventurers. One wore a still intact suit of leather armor and the two others wore ragged remnants of wizards' robes. They all wore tattered and rotten backpacks and Caryatid used her dagger to cut the backpacks free of the bodies while down below Simon and Orin tried to work out a way to get Caryatid off the ceiling, while Meat and Adrien held Debbi in place.
While they were dealing with this situation, I rolled a random encounter, and eight giant centipedes swarmed into the room. Well, it seemed only logical that the next that happened was the eight centipedes flying up to the ceiling and going splat! A bit of comic relief.
Simon discovered that a coil of rope thrown into the air was lofted up towards the ceiling, and so he moved further into the chamber to send the rope up to Caryatid. She awkwardly looped it through the backpacks and tied it around her waist and Simon and Orin pulled hard against the magical force and eventually hauled Caryatid back to terra firma. They quickly retreated from the chamber and their queasy stomachs immediately returned to normal. The backpacks turned out to contain mostly mundane adventuring gear, but also a bit of treasure: some gold, a jeweled belt, a crystal vial containing a sparkling potion, and a very well made silken rope, thinner and more supple than an ordinary hemp rope. All this was packed away and they proceeded through the caves.
As they passed through the caverns, they saw flickering lights and heard a rumbling hubbub that told them the Goblin Market was in session! Caryatid expressed her opinion that the Goblin Market was all just worthless junk, but Adrien had never seen it and was interested in it, so they grudgingly left their weapons with the hulking bugbear guards and entered the brightly lit hall, with its crooked checkerboard tiles and oddly angled columns. The market was lively, full of all sorts of dungeon residents. Mixed among the goblins and hobgoblins both buying and selling they noted two of the dungeon urchins, some scruffy men who looked like bandits, a gaggle of fresh-faced acolytes from the Temple of Hedonism, several gnomes and their horrible counterparts the knockers, and most alarmingly, the bent and withered form of the Queen of Nightmares, who perused the wares with a cruel thin-lipped sneer while her bugbear slaves stood motionless next to her sedan chair.
The adventurers walked from table to table as goblins loudly offered weapons, equipment, and food of all sorts. They finally came to the table where a smirking hobgoblin was selling all sorts of special items: relics of forgotten saints and/or heretics; a collection of fairy wings, pinned to cards and labeled; fried elf ears; an assortment of tools of completely inscrutable purpose; etc. Then, in a fenced enclosure next to the table, Adrien found something she liked: a mangy, flea-infested, malodorous giant ferret. The hobgoblin called it a "fetcher" and said it was specially trained in catching small animals like rats and fetching small items. It seemed to perhaps be slightly demonic, as its eyes were filled with reckless violence and foam frothed continually at its mouth. But Adrien was quite taken with it and wanted to buy it. The hobgoblin told her that it would only serve one master at a time, and needed to be bonded to its owner.
"What do you mean, bonded?" asked Adrien.
"Give me your hand," smiled the hobgoblin. She did so and before she could react he had slashed her palm with a small concealed knife. He roughly pulled her hand down in front of the horrible ferret, and it greedily shoved its frothing mouth into her palm, lapping hungrily at the blood welling up from the wound. Everyone in the party went pale and aghast, except Adrien who chirped, "I'm okay with it!"
"It must be fed in this way at least weekly, in order to maintain the bond between it and its mistress," instructed the hobgoblin with a sinister smile. He gave her a nasty leather leash that buckled to a collar around the beast's neck.
And with their dreadful new "pet" in tow, the party retrieved their weapons and left the Goblin Market, heading towards the cave that held the eternal flame. They passed a group of goblins who took one look at the ferret and nearly collapsed with laughter. "She bought a fetcher! She bought a fetcher!" They continued on through the caves, and found the steep climb that led to the flame. Simon clambered up the wall with some help from Meat, and then stooped to get through a very low crawl that emerged into a weirdly glistening grotto. Bits of reflective minerals sparkled in the light of the eternal flame, which flickered in a niche in the wall at the rear of the cave. Behind the flame, the sticky elixir wept from the stone of the niche and collected in a small hollow below it. Simon scooped as much of the honey-like elixir as he could into a flask, and then returned to the others.
They retraced their steps, and stopped briefly in the Goblin Market so Orin could buy a crossbow. It looked really rickety and liable to break, but it was cheap! The market was considerably less busy now, but a new seller was set up at a table: a woman dressed in black robes and a black mourning veil of dense lace that completely obscured her features. Before her on the table she had many flasks and vials and she offered them potions of all sorts for sale. Everything was much too expensive for their tastes, however, so they left her without buying anything, and made their way back out of the dungeon to the surface.
Later that day, the adventures regrouped at Gulleck's apartment, where his body lay in peaceful repose.
"Okay, cross your fingers," said Caryatid. "Here goes nothing!"
They slowly poured the syrupy elixir into Gulleck's pale parted lips. At first nothing happened, and then everyone shielded their eyes at a bright light that seemed to burst forth from Gulleck's body. A roaring sound like a waterfall filled everyone's ears and grew in intensity until it became painful. The light burned brighter and brighter, and Gulleck's calm features seemed to dissolve into it. And then the light and sound reached a crescendo and suddenly were gone. And where Gulleck had laid on his bed was someone else entirely...
I treat the elixir of life as a Reincarnation spell, except that it physically regenerates the body into a completely new person, with a potentially radically altered personality. I used the table of classes from the Expert rulebook to determine the PC's new class (or even a monster!), and created my own tables for determining new physical characteristics. So, I let Gulleck's player roll to determine his new character. He rolled for his new class, and... a dwarf! A dwarf with black hair, swarthy skin, middle-aged, and... a lady dwarf!
Now normally the Reincarnation spell doesn't allow you to exceed your previous level, but since this was not a spell but a magical elixir not quite as readily available as a spell, I allowed Gulleck's player to roll 1d6 for his character's new level, and he rolled a 6! So Gulleck now has 37 hit points, and we rerolled all the ability scores as well. Strength of 5, Dexterity of 6. Not a very effective dwarf! The +2 bonus from the magical axe is now negated by the -2 strength penalty. Gulleck will now receive a -20% penalty to experience points, but it's not like she's going to make it to 7th level anytime in the near future! Other stats were Intelligence 7, Wisdom 13, Constitution 13, and Charisma 15. Quite a character of extremes!
Wide eyes surrounded the unfamiliar dwarf lying on the bed, who gazed around as if seeing the room for the first time.
"Well, hiya, folks!" she said, in an unfamiliar accent.
So explanations were exchanged, and Caryatid tried out some new names for her old friend.
"Gulleckina?"
"Gulleck will do fine, darlin'."
"Gulleckessa?"
"Nope, just Gulleck, sugar."
Just another day in Idalium!
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