Session date: November 6, 2017
Game date: Saturday, January 10, 210 to Sunday, January 18, 210
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 6, hp 37, xp 35412/70000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 17089/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 3, hp 11, xp 5919/8000
Adrien, Fighter 3, hp 9, xp 5271/8000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 5742/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 2, hp 11, xp 2654/3000
Orin, Elf 1, hp 4, xp 455/4000
Debbi, Magic-user 1, hp 6, xp 757/2500
The mist cleared and the adventurers found themselves back in the apartment complex courtyard as if nothing had happened. The braziers had all burnt out and the only light now came from Simon's glowing sword. That was a bit odd, because Simon had been left behind after he was shredded by the witches' black cats, but here he was, hale and hearty, along with Debbi, Caryatid, and the others who had died in Castle Ravenloft. While the adventurers were looking around and getting their bearings, Gloomvrack and the other goblins quickly scrambled off into the darkness and their footsteps echoed on the steps of the other staircase leading out of the apartment complex.
The party picked their way through the charred bodies of goblins to investigate the remains of the Goblin Prince. To their surprise, the body of the Prince was gone. Meat's arrow was still there, tangled up in the Prince's waistcoat and the rest of his clothes. A golden coronet lay on top of the pile of clothes. The adventurers claimed the crown for their own, scavenged a few dozen electrum half darics from the goblin corpses, and then quickly made their way out of the dungeon and back to the city. The crown was not magical so they sold it for a cool 700 gold darics.
Having vanquished the Goblin Prince, they set their sights again on the palace of the Goblin King. The "blow 'em up" tactic had worked so well with the orcs and the goblins that they bought another two barrels of oil, with the idea of either blowing up the doors of the palace or rolling it into the guardroom and letting it deal with the guards for them. That cost them 400 gold darics, and Adrien spent another 100 darics to enable her retainer Debbi to create a Sleep spell scroll. What a generous employer!
When they arrived at the Rusty Lantern a week later, they found the rival NPC party Rugger's Raiders celebrating drunkenly. Their meek and naive elf Moonpetal was wearing an ill-fitting and familiar waistcoat and pantaloons.
"Hey, Gulleck!" chortled Rugger. "You won't believe this! Somebody wiped out the Goblin Prince and all his goblins, and left all the treasure unguarded!" And he proceeded to tell them exactly how many hundreds of silver and electrum pieces they had found free for the taking. (This was a random roll on my "who's at the Rusty Lantern" table that I roll at the start of every session, but when it came up, of course I couldn't help but rub in the players' failure to search the rest of the apartment complex.)
Well, that didn't put anyone in a good mood, and they quickly descended with their barrels and cart and proceeded to the shaft the gnomes had excavated down to the second level. Debbi was given the task of climbing down the rope ladder first, in order to guide the barrels to the floor in the room below. She was entrusted with the spare invisibility ring to keep her safe in case any monsters happened to be down there. She climbed down the ladder, very carefully (and awkwardly!) holding a lit torch as she descended. In the room at the bottom, she put the torch in one of the sconces on the wall and then made ready to receive the barrels.
Orin manned the winch, and did his best to lower the heavy wooden barrels down the shaft to the square of light some 40 feet below. He failed a dexterity check (roll a d20 below your dexterity score) with the first barrel, so I ruled that it cracked against the edge of the shaft and leaked a drizzle of oil down below, drenching Debbi's robes as she stood below. The barrel made it to the bottom successfully and Debbi did her best to orient it to minimize the leak, but the floor was getting slippery with oil. Then Orin hauled up the ropes, prepared the second barrel, and lowered it down.
He rolled a 20 on his dexterity check, a critical failure.
The barrel slipped out of the ropes, and fell 20 feet to the bottom of the shaft. It hit the stone floor and shattered into several dozen wooden slats. The 16 gallons of oil splashed everywhere, sloshing up against the walls and the torch that was burning brightly.
There was a colossal explosion below, and then a second explosion as the first barrel of oil ignited.
"Well. Sonabitch," deadpanned Gulleck.
"And I just spent 100 gold pieces on her stupid Sleep spell!" sputtered Adrien.
"Guys, the invisibility ring is down there," reminded Simon.
So they climbed down the ladder and retrieved the ring from the finger of the blackened, melted body of Debbi, and hauled her corpse up with the winch. Then they all called it a day.
Adrien hired a new retainer, a novice thief named Jack. Captain Jack, in fact, and a photo of John Barrowman was subsequently printed out and taped to his character sheet. "He's not a real captain, you know," offered Simon.
So the next day they all reunited at the Rusty Lantern and decided not to deal with the Goblin Palace this time. They went down to the second level, and brought Jack to the Temple of Fate so he could be "hazed" on the Wheel of Fortune. Round and round he spun, and hopped off filled with knowledge and experience. He jumped straight from 0 XP to level 2! Then Adrien tied her "pet" ferret Norman to the wheel, with a few lengths of rope to help anchor him to the straps. Norman survived the ordeal, though what boon had been bestowed upon him no one could tell.
Then they decided to venture down to the third level of the dungeon! Just to the west of the basement of the Temple of Hedonism (the well-traveled "orgy room") there was a four-way intersection whose southern branch led down a flight of stone steps into darkness. They had never ventured down these steps before, but now they carefully descended the old, uneven steps. As they left the second level, the stones of the walls and ceiling took on a different character. They were larger, cruder, and more worn, feeling somehow more ancient than the smoothly cut stonework of the second level. The air grew cooler and vaguely unwholesome, and the walls grew green and mossy, damp and uneven.
The stairs ended at an immense stone door carved from the wall itself. In the center of the door, a hideous, larger-than-life demonic face was carved in relief, staring wildly forward with its mouth gaping wide open. There was no doorknob, handle, or keyhole in evidence, although the adventurers had acquired a key some time ago from the cultists who claimed to operate from a temple down here, "in the dark dungeons below". Gulleck carefully peered into the mouth of the demon face with the light from Simon's sword, and found what looked like a keyhole recessed deep in the throat of the face. Wincing with apprehension, she reached into the mouth with the key and inserted the key into the hole and then turned. There was a loud snap, and happily Gulleck's arm was not bitten off, but rather the door slowly creaked open revealing a 30' square chamber of the same rough and mossy stone, the walls carved with numerous bizarre gods or demons whose baleful eyes seemed to follow the adventurers as they entered the room. Hallways led off to the west and east, and a door hung open on the south wall opposite the heavy stone door from which they entered.
As the adventurers got their bearings and looked around the hall, they became aware of a deep bass voice humming somewhat tunelessly, emanating from the corridor to the south.
"Bom bum ba bum... bom bebum bum... Hello there!"
The adventurers looked round in surprise.
"Yes, you there in the hall. I can see you, you know! Why don't you come in and say hello? It's so rare that I have visitors."
Cautiously they walked down the hallway, passing two ornate and dusty mirrors that were angled in such a way to reflect the image of the outer hall down the corridor. They passed through a room set with old wooden chairs facing a lectern, and then went past a tattered blue curtain to enter a small room containing a thick stone pillar that connected the floor and ceiling. The front of the pillar was carved with a large stone face that peered at them curiously from beneath bushy stone eyebrows. The mouth moved (in a strangely mechanical way, the jaw moving up and down and the mustache twitching) and the face spoke:
"Ah, how nice it is to have visitors! As I said, it's been SO long since I had the chance to speak with newcomers."
Then the entire pillar rotated ninety degrees, with a great scraping and creaking, turning to reveal another face, this one with a congenial, welcoming expression.
To make a long story short, the stone pillar told them that he had been here for longer than he could remember. Once upon a time he had been worshiped by the people of Idalium, who had honored him as a divine judge. They brought their worst criminals to him, and he could see into their hearts and judge them accordingly.
"Oh, how wonderful is was to be held in such esteem, to be worshiped by so many people. But those days are long, long gone. Now I just sit here and wait for people to come by and talk to me. It's so nice of you to visit, by the way. It really means a lot to me. Most of the people living down here nowadays don't have much time for me. And most of them just aren't very good conversationalists, anyway."
Meanwhile, Gulleck was looking around and noticed a high backed wooden chair against the right-hand wall. Old leather straps hung from the arms and at the feet, and an ominous leather basket-like harness hung done over the top of the chair. A round scorch mark marred the center of the back of the chair. None of this made Gulleck feel comfortable.
The face on the pillar pressed them for information about the current goings on in the dungeon, saying that he would love to trade information for "shiny stones". As a show of good faith he offered to answer one question for free.
"You don't know anything about a giant beanstalk, do you?" asked Gulleck, thinking of their golden egg laying goose and the information that it came from a giant's castle in the sky. (Although frankly, linking it to a beanstalk is clearly player knowledge!)
"Hmm... There are the gardens to the north of here. I do not know of any giant beanstalks, but that is the place I would go look. I mean, if I could go look, that is." (The pillar rotated again, to a laughing face, and the face chuckled wryly.)
Saying their farewells to the strange stone face, the group returned to the hall, and decided to explore down the eastern hall. They opened a door leading off the hall, entered a small temple or shrine, and were promptly surprised by three man-sized, bipedal rats! Gulleck dodged the bites of two of the ratmen, but Simon yelped as dirty teeth sank into his hand. Gulleck's axe whistled as it bit into one of the ratmen. The three ratmen sent up a strange keening cry that echoed down the hallway.
Orin cast a Sleep spell and one of the wererats fell to the ground. Adrien had a magic sword whose hilt was carved with the faces of a rat and a wolf. This sword had proven to be extra powerful against ratmen in the past, and it seemed to guide her hand as it effortlessly cut into another of the ratmen.
Simon was bit badly, before Gulleck and Adrien killed the remaining ratmen. Simon was lucky: he had taken 5/11 hit points of damage, just one point shy of the 50% that would have meant he had contracted lycanthropy! Brother Chase laid his hands on Simon's wounds and miraculously healed him of all injury.
Apparently responding to the keening of the wererats, three giant rats came scurrying up the hall to attack the adventurers, but Orin and Caryatid both cast Sleep spells (thinking they were more wererats!) and they were dealt with before they even had a chance to attack.
Satisfied with beginning their exploration of the third level, the party returned to the entry hall and ascended the stairs, returning to the Rusty Lantern without further encounter.
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