Session date: Monday, December 5, 2016
Game date: Saturday, March 29, 209 to Saturday, April 5, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 12689/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 14207/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 2, hp 6, xp 2941/4000
Adrien, Fighter 1, hp 4, xp 1669/2000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 4668/8000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 1420/1500
After pulling off the dungeon heist of the campaign in the last session, it was now time to sell the spoils! As luck would have it, it was right on time for the annual magical auction in Idalium, jointly organized by the Adventurers' Guild and a trading house catering to wealthy collectors, and held each year around the Spring Equinox. After the unfortunate events of last year's auction, this year it was being held on a merchant ship that was anchored some way out of the harbor, for better security. The adventurers made arrangements with the Guild and the Runcible Trading House to have the idol and associated paraphernalia transported to the ship in advance of the auction.
The day of the auction, the party assembled at a specified dock at the river that runs along the west edge of the City of Idalium. There, a small barge ferried them downstream south, past the tanneries, blacksmiths, and other industrial uses that lined the river, past the city walls, and out into the sea proper. As they left the mouth of the river, they could see the large ship waiting, with many other barges and dinghies clustered around it, having ferried many other auction attendees over.
The adventurers boarded the ship and entered the large cabin that was set up for the auction. Musicians played softly in a corner, and light refreshments were laid out. Many familiar faces were present: Lady Mary Jameson, the young and extremely wealthy aristocrat seeking mysterious and occult artifacts; the Baroness Millicent Trenevant, with whom the party were on friendly terms, having once retrieved her stolen goods; the nouveau riche Vincent Patrenzi. And many of their fellow adventurers were here: Rugger's Raiders and Shorty's Sirens, as well as their erstwhile retainer Father Jed and his troupe of reformed bandits. And "Sallies Forth" were here: an adventuring party made up of "Psycho Sally" (formerly of Shorty's Sirens), plus three magical duplicates. And Professor Zinn, the elderly sage, was here, and it transpired he was bidding at the bequest of Caryatid the Green (adventurer Caryatid's magical duplicate, who now lived in the dungeon and was researching all sorts of disturbing things).
To make a long story short, I conducted the auction using a modified system that I borrowed from a Call of Cthulhu scenario that I used during the previous magical auction. A prewritten chart listed which attendees would be inclined to bid on which objects, and rolls of the dice determined whether or not they would continue bidding or drop out. It is a lot of dice rolling and done too often I think it would be tedious for everyone, but as a change of pace restricted to an annual auction, I think it worked well enough, and introduced some randomness into the events of the auction.
In the end, this is how things panned out: Shorty's Sirens won the bidding for a "smoking urn", a brass bottle warm to the touch and continually emitting smoke (said to hold an imprisoned demon) and well as a set of elvish boots and cloak with an intriguing shimmering pattern and silent soles designed to aid in concealment. Jed acquired a protective scroll against magical influence for 25,000 silver shekels. The party bid 11,500 shekels on a set of gold, copper, and tin medallions, but these turned out to be nonmagical trinkets. Gulleck was interested in a suit of wonderfully crafted dwarven plate armor, but so was Rugger, and the party eventually dropped out of the bidding war at 61,500 shekels. Baroness Trenevant acquired some carved ivory divination sticks from the far east and a golden ring engraved with a design of intertwined serpents. Caryatid spent most of the party's money to bid on a "wand of unpredictable magic", an 11" magical wand of rowan wood, whimsically carved and painted in various colors. Vincent Patrenzi won the bidding on a disturbing human skull, with the top cut away and the interior inlaid with silver to form a cup.
As for the party's own entry into the auction, Lady Mary, Baroness Trenevant, and Vincent Patrenzi all bid on this exotic and imposing idol. Bidding started at 125,000 shekels, and the three bid it up until Lady Mary prevailed at 136,500 silver shekels.
The party used their winnings to pay for the wand and medallions that they acquired, and returned to the Rusty Lantern to celebrate their winnings.
A week later, they reunited for a short delve into the dungeon. The first order of business was to deliver to the gnomes their half share of the proceeds. Of course, on the way, Caryatid couldn't help but test out her new "wand of unpredictable magic". As soon as they were in the dungeon, Caryatid drew forth the wand, and pointed it down the buried street into the darkness of an old city plaza. She felt the wand's power twitching, and reaching into it with her mind, she released the chaotic power and let it manifest. A bead of glowing light like a burning ember shot forth from the tip of the wand and streaked through the dark. There was a brief glimpse of the stone fountain in the plaza and the four statues surrounding it, and then there was a loud whooof of fire and a gust of heat that staggered them on their feet. The plaza was briefly brilliantly illuminated by the expanding fireball and then all was dark and quiet again. The party excitedly moved forward into the plaza to see the impact of the wand's magic, and in the light of Simon's sword they found that the fountain now lay in rubble, the four statues knocked away from it, lying in several pieces on the cobblestones of the square.
"Excellent!" everyone cheered, and then moved on to meet the gnomes. The gnomes were overjoyed to see their friends and even more so to see their large bag of gold that they delivered. An impromptu party was held in the gnomes' cozy little hideaway. Little seedcakes were eaten, and gnomish tea and ale were drunk. Little gnomes played little tunes on tiny little lutes and tambourines.
Well-fed and well-rested after the party, the adventurers still had some time so they decided to explore a bit more of the second level. They used their new shaft to descend to the room from which they had stolen the idol. The eerie green flames had vanished from the torch sconces on the walls, and the cold fear that had pervaded the room was gone. The adjacent rooms, that had been shrouded in a perpetual magical darkness, were now normal, and the darkness of the dungeon yielded to the cool light of Simon's magical sword. The adventurers proceeded to an apartment at the north end of the level. In the apartment was a stone statue of a woman, and an inscription on her clothing read "I shall guard my treasure until I am wed." Well, in the recent poring over of character sheets, Gulleck's player realized that Gulleck had been carrying around a "stone ring" that they had acquired many sessions ago in a "honeymoon suite". So, off they went to try it out!
Unfortunately, in the bedroom containing the statue, four hobgoblins were already present, examining the inscription on the statue for themselves. They party bantered with the goblins, and the banter turned a bit aggressive, but the party walked out of the room rather than fighting the goblins, whom they have mostly remained on friendly terms with so far (although recent revelations about the origin of the goblins have made this relationship much more awkward). They went into the adjoining room, which contained a fresco on the wall of a jester that would magically move and speak when approached. When they entered, however, they found several giant centipedes crawling on the painting, and the jester was hysterically yelling and crying in Ancient Idalian (which no one could understand). The party took one look at this, shook their heads, and left the room. Heartless!
In the hallway, they encountered four of the berserker "hippies" who lived not far from this area of the dungeon. Caryatid remembered only too well being strangled to death by their fellows, and the party conversed lightly, to avoid disturbing the hippies' mood. Eventually, they parted ways and the hippies entered the room with the jester. The adventurers listened with barely disguised glee and they heard the hobgoblins mock the hippies with sneering condescension. This enraged the hippies, and the two groups fell into a savage battle in the doorway between the two rooms. Gulleck quickly led the adventurers down the hallway around a corner, where they re-entered the bedroom with the statue. While the hobgoblins and hippie berserkers fought in the next room, Gulleck ran to the statue and popped the stone ring onto its finger. A vertical seam suddenly appeared in the torso of the statue and it opened up like a pair of doors, revealing a shelf containing several pieces of jewelry (two bracelets and a headdress) and a golden ring. He removed the stone ring, causing the statue to close again, hurled it into a dusty corner of the room, and bolted back out before the hobgoblins could take notice.
They made it back to the Rusty Lantern without incident. The bracelets and headdress they sold for 2,000 gold darics, earning enough experience points to raise Brother Chase to the second level (allowing him to cast a clerical spell each day!). The golden ring turned out to be a magical ring of invisibility, much like the one Caryatid owned. Quite a successful session!
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
Idalium Game 63: The Heist!
Session date: Monday, October 3, 2016
Game date: Saturday, March 22, 209
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 3, hp 16, xp 6282/8000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 11357/17000
Tyrriel, Elf 2, hp 7, xp 6278/8000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 12996/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1669/2000
Adrien, Fighter 1, hp 4, xp 458/2000
Retainers:
Father Jibber, Cleric 3, hp 16, xp 3218/6000
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 4062/8000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 2, hp 4, xp 2624/5000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 784/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 246/1250
Finally, the big day had arrived! The entire current roster of players were in the same room at the same time, and in the city of Idalium the vernal equinox augured an auspicious delve: the Great Heist of the gilded idol and ceremonial paraphernalia from the shrine of shadows! Tod and Tyrriel arrived at the Rusty Lantern for the first time in a couple of months. Tod was still a woman and Tyrriel was still a man, after sampling from the magical fountains in the Temple of Hedonism; apparently the effects were permanent.
In recent sessions, the adventurers had commissioned a mining party of friendly gnomes to dig a shaft straight down from the first level to where they hoped was the shrine of shadows on the second level (they lined up their hand drawn maps to figure out where to dig). Only today would they find out if they had calculated their target correctly. In the past few sessions, they had procured various supplies for the heist: a custom-designed leather harness and plenty of rope for lifting the idol, a block and tackle and winch for hauling it up the shaft, and a small handcart for moving it through the dungeon.
Buzzing with excitement, the adventurers descended into the undercity. Their first stop was the headquarters of the gnomes, deep in the mines in the northeast section of the first level. Tom Pipkin, the leader of the gnomes, greeted them warmly. The adventurers could see the same avaricious excitement in his eyes as they saw in their fellow party members' eyes, for they had promised the gnomes a 50/50 cut of the revenue from the sale of the idol and paraphernalia. Tom, his right hand man Grimble Grumble, and half a dozen gnomes set out with the adventurers to the dig site.
The dig site was in one of the old temples off the main Avenue of Temples. The inside was constructed to resemble a natural cave, and the ceiling was painted to look like the night sky. Great piles of earth and stone rubble now lay strewn in the corners of the temple, as well as in the street outside. Caryatid had wizard locked the door to the temple, which sealed it to anyone except her. The door in the back of the temple they had spiked shut with iron spikes, which Gulleck now pulled out, in case they had to escape that way in a hurry. Meanwhile, the gnomes and other party members went to work setting up the winch and the block and tackle system, along with rope ladders, etc.
While they were busy setting up their stuff, four scruffy looking guys in leather armor sauntered up to the open door. Bandits, evidently. "Hey, whatcha doin'? That's quite a hole you guys dug! Mind if we watch?" Pretty soon Tyrriel got tired of talking and cast Sleep on them. The bandits were dragged into a robing room behind the temple.
With that out of the way and everything set up, Gulleck and Tod descended into the shaft, climbing the ladders as quietly as possible down some twenty or so feet to the bottom, where they could see the shaped flagstones of the ceiling of the room below them. The gnomes had carefully cleared the dirt and rubble away, but left the ceiling itself undisturbed until the adventurers were ready. Now, they made ready to silently pry the stone from its space. Tod drank a potion of invisibility that they had found some time ago, and Gulleck slipped on Caryatid's ring of invisibility. (Now this kind of thing always leads to debates at the table as to what happens when someone goes invisible while carrying a leather harness attached to a long rope. My ruling is that the carried harness itself goes invisible, but the end of the rope that is not in first-hand contact with the character would still be visible, moving around with no apparent cause.)
Anyway, as soon as Gulleck and Tod shifted the stone, Caryatid quickly cast Phantasmal Force at the gap to "set up a camera loop" with the image of the stone ceiling slab. Then Gulleck and Tod lifted the slab out of the way, and poked their invisible heads through the illusion to see what was going on. The shrine lay still and unsettling as ever, heatless green flames flickering in torch sconces on the walls, casting eerie shadows all around. The hideous idol crouched on the bloodstained altar on the south wall. The adventurers were hoping to have come out exactly above the idol, but unfortunately their shaft terminated in the northeast corner of the room some fifteen feet away from the altar. Oh well, at least they hit the room!
Tod and Gulleck dropped as quietly as possible into the room, carrying the harness (trailing a visible rope behind it) and made their way over to the idol. Gulleck and Tod quickly the the harness over the idol, and it became visible as they did so. The room suddenly felt colder and a panicky fear began to catch in their throats as they saw the shadows begin to coalesce into eight man-sized shapes. They hurriedly continued securing the harness to the idol as the shadows drifted off the walls and swirled angrily through the air at them, cold voices hissing meaningless curses at them.
Gritting their teeth against the fear, Gulleck and Tod tugged on the rope attached to the harness, lifted the idol from the altar, and carried it towards the hole in the ceiling. The shadows swirled around them, snatching at the air angrily. But Tod and Gulleck were still invisible, having not attacked in any way, and I generally give a -4 penalty to attack rolls against invisible opponents, if the attacker even knows generally where to attack! Along with their plate armor (magical, in Tod's case), this was enough that the shadows flailed at the air ineffectively, and Tod and Gulleck were able to get the idol under the shaft without ever being hit by the shadows. The party members above began cranking the winch and the idol began to rise up the shaft. The eight shadows howled in rage and swarmed up the shaft, as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly. Gulleck and Tod could scarce believe their good luck, and quickly ran back to the altar to collect the chalice, dagger, and sacrificial implements and secure them in a backpack before returning to the shaft and climbing the rope ladder back up to join the battle above.
And a battle it was. The shadows swirled through the air of the temple, barely visible in the flickering lantern light until they swooped down to slash at someone. They attacked indiscriminately, and because they were aerial, no one had shelter from their attacks. (Basically, I just assigned everyone a number, including the eight gnomes, and rolled a d20 for each shadow to determine its target each round.) Brother Jibber kept working the winch to bring the idol up, and Tod and Gulleck were trying to stabilize it from below to make sure it didn't get damaged on the walls of the shaft.
The battle raged on. Meat and Brother Chase found that their weapons passed through the shadows with no effect. Caryatid's voice rang out over and over, reading the magical words from her scrolls of Magic Missile. The glowing golden arrows shot forth and struck true every time with a small burst of golden sparks. Eventually, Tod and Gulleck surfaced and joined the battle with their magical sword and axe. There was an effort at some point to put the idol on the cart and get it out into the street in case the shadows wouldn't pursue too far from their shrine, but the shadows poured forth from the temple into the street and the battle continued there. Quite a few people were struck by shadows, feeling a cold numbness suffuse their bodies, but eventually magic weapons (and especially Caryatid's Magic Missile scrolls) prevailed, and the last of the shadows dissipated into a cold mist.
A great cheer went up. The adventurers and gnomes bid each other farewell with a promise to meet again after the auction to pay the gnomes their share of the revenue. And the adventurers carefully maneuvered the cart through the halls of the undercity and had it carefully hoisted up into the cellar of the Rusty Lantern (one of the few times they've used the cellar hoist for anything other than unconscious or dead bodies!).
A couple notes on the shadows: eight shadows are potentially a serious threat to a party of second level PCs (especially as they are immune to normal weapons). To mitigate this, I had the shadows be attached to the idol and ceremonial items in the shrine. They would not pursue PCs out the shrine if the items were left alone. (I do like including dangerous monsters or situations if the players have the ability to disengage and retreat.) If the ceremonial items like the robe and headdress were taken, the shadows would pursue into the peripheral rooms with the magical darkness, but not into the hallways. And if the idol itself was stolen, the shadows would pursue anywhere and without giving up or losing morale.
Now, in the end, my players left this room with the scary shadows until they were significantly above level 2 on average, and had several magical weapons to fight them with, so this fight wasn't quite as tough as it could have been. But I don't mind! I really enjoyed watching my players plan and execute this "heist", negotiating with the gnomes to do the hard work of digging a shaft (which is now a permanent alternate entrance to the second level for the PCs), and creatively using invisibility to get the idol out of the room while taking minimal damage from the shadows. The shadows didn't end up being a very significant threat, but it was still a highly memorable session!
Game date: Saturday, March 22, 209
PCs:
Tod P. Quasit, Jr., Fighter 3, hp 16, xp 6282/8000
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 11357/17000
Tyrriel, Elf 2, hp 7, xp 6278/8000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 12996/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1669/2000
Adrien, Fighter 1, hp 4, xp 458/2000
Retainers:
Father Jibber, Cleric 3, hp 16, xp 3218/6000
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 3, hp 17, xp 4062/8000
Wilhelm, Magic-user 2, hp 4, xp 2624/5000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 784/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 246/1250
Finally, the big day had arrived! The entire current roster of players were in the same room at the same time, and in the city of Idalium the vernal equinox augured an auspicious delve: the Great Heist of the gilded idol and ceremonial paraphernalia from the shrine of shadows! Tod and Tyrriel arrived at the Rusty Lantern for the first time in a couple of months. Tod was still a woman and Tyrriel was still a man, after sampling from the magical fountains in the Temple of Hedonism; apparently the effects were permanent.
In recent sessions, the adventurers had commissioned a mining party of friendly gnomes to dig a shaft straight down from the first level to where they hoped was the shrine of shadows on the second level (they lined up their hand drawn maps to figure out where to dig). Only today would they find out if they had calculated their target correctly. In the past few sessions, they had procured various supplies for the heist: a custom-designed leather harness and plenty of rope for lifting the idol, a block and tackle and winch for hauling it up the shaft, and a small handcart for moving it through the dungeon.
Buzzing with excitement, the adventurers descended into the undercity. Their first stop was the headquarters of the gnomes, deep in the mines in the northeast section of the first level. Tom Pipkin, the leader of the gnomes, greeted them warmly. The adventurers could see the same avaricious excitement in his eyes as they saw in their fellow party members' eyes, for they had promised the gnomes a 50/50 cut of the revenue from the sale of the idol and paraphernalia. Tom, his right hand man Grimble Grumble, and half a dozen gnomes set out with the adventurers to the dig site.
The dig site was in one of the old temples off the main Avenue of Temples. The inside was constructed to resemble a natural cave, and the ceiling was painted to look like the night sky. Great piles of earth and stone rubble now lay strewn in the corners of the temple, as well as in the street outside. Caryatid had wizard locked the door to the temple, which sealed it to anyone except her. The door in the back of the temple they had spiked shut with iron spikes, which Gulleck now pulled out, in case they had to escape that way in a hurry. Meanwhile, the gnomes and other party members went to work setting up the winch and the block and tackle system, along with rope ladders, etc.
While they were busy setting up their stuff, four scruffy looking guys in leather armor sauntered up to the open door. Bandits, evidently. "Hey, whatcha doin'? That's quite a hole you guys dug! Mind if we watch?" Pretty soon Tyrriel got tired of talking and cast Sleep on them. The bandits were dragged into a robing room behind the temple.
With that out of the way and everything set up, Gulleck and Tod descended into the shaft, climbing the ladders as quietly as possible down some twenty or so feet to the bottom, where they could see the shaped flagstones of the ceiling of the room below them. The gnomes had carefully cleared the dirt and rubble away, but left the ceiling itself undisturbed until the adventurers were ready. Now, they made ready to silently pry the stone from its space. Tod drank a potion of invisibility that they had found some time ago, and Gulleck slipped on Caryatid's ring of invisibility. (Now this kind of thing always leads to debates at the table as to what happens when someone goes invisible while carrying a leather harness attached to a long rope. My ruling is that the carried harness itself goes invisible, but the end of the rope that is not in first-hand contact with the character would still be visible, moving around with no apparent cause.)
Anyway, as soon as Gulleck and Tod shifted the stone, Caryatid quickly cast Phantasmal Force at the gap to "set up a camera loop" with the image of the stone ceiling slab. Then Gulleck and Tod lifted the slab out of the way, and poked their invisible heads through the illusion to see what was going on. The shrine lay still and unsettling as ever, heatless green flames flickering in torch sconces on the walls, casting eerie shadows all around. The hideous idol crouched on the bloodstained altar on the south wall. The adventurers were hoping to have come out exactly above the idol, but unfortunately their shaft terminated in the northeast corner of the room some fifteen feet away from the altar. Oh well, at least they hit the room!
Tod and Gulleck dropped as quietly as possible into the room, carrying the harness (trailing a visible rope behind it) and made their way over to the idol. Gulleck and Tod quickly the the harness over the idol, and it became visible as they did so. The room suddenly felt colder and a panicky fear began to catch in their throats as they saw the shadows begin to coalesce into eight man-sized shapes. They hurriedly continued securing the harness to the idol as the shadows drifted off the walls and swirled angrily through the air at them, cold voices hissing meaningless curses at them.
Gritting their teeth against the fear, Gulleck and Tod tugged on the rope attached to the harness, lifted the idol from the altar, and carried it towards the hole in the ceiling. The shadows swirled around them, snatching at the air angrily. But Tod and Gulleck were still invisible, having not attacked in any way, and I generally give a -4 penalty to attack rolls against invisible opponents, if the attacker even knows generally where to attack! Along with their plate armor (magical, in Tod's case), this was enough that the shadows flailed at the air ineffectively, and Tod and Gulleck were able to get the idol under the shaft without ever being hit by the shadows. The party members above began cranking the winch and the idol began to rise up the shaft. The eight shadows howled in rage and swarmed up the shaft, as dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly. Gulleck and Tod could scarce believe their good luck, and quickly ran back to the altar to collect the chalice, dagger, and sacrificial implements and secure them in a backpack before returning to the shaft and climbing the rope ladder back up to join the battle above.
And a battle it was. The shadows swirled through the air of the temple, barely visible in the flickering lantern light until they swooped down to slash at someone. They attacked indiscriminately, and because they were aerial, no one had shelter from their attacks. (Basically, I just assigned everyone a number, including the eight gnomes, and rolled a d20 for each shadow to determine its target each round.) Brother Jibber kept working the winch to bring the idol up, and Tod and Gulleck were trying to stabilize it from below to make sure it didn't get damaged on the walls of the shaft.
The battle raged on. Meat and Brother Chase found that their weapons passed through the shadows with no effect. Caryatid's voice rang out over and over, reading the magical words from her scrolls of Magic Missile. The glowing golden arrows shot forth and struck true every time with a small burst of golden sparks. Eventually, Tod and Gulleck surfaced and joined the battle with their magical sword and axe. There was an effort at some point to put the idol on the cart and get it out into the street in case the shadows wouldn't pursue too far from their shrine, but the shadows poured forth from the temple into the street and the battle continued there. Quite a few people were struck by shadows, feeling a cold numbness suffuse their bodies, but eventually magic weapons (and especially Caryatid's Magic Missile scrolls) prevailed, and the last of the shadows dissipated into a cold mist.
A great cheer went up. The adventurers and gnomes bid each other farewell with a promise to meet again after the auction to pay the gnomes their share of the revenue. And the adventurers carefully maneuvered the cart through the halls of the undercity and had it carefully hoisted up into the cellar of the Rusty Lantern (one of the few times they've used the cellar hoist for anything other than unconscious or dead bodies!).
A couple notes on the shadows: eight shadows are potentially a serious threat to a party of second level PCs (especially as they are immune to normal weapons). To mitigate this, I had the shadows be attached to the idol and ceremonial items in the shrine. They would not pursue PCs out the shrine if the items were left alone. (I do like including dangerous monsters or situations if the players have the ability to disengage and retreat.) If the ceremonial items like the robe and headdress were taken, the shadows would pursue into the peripheral rooms with the magical darkness, but not into the hallways. And if the idol itself was stolen, the shadows would pursue anywhere and without giving up or losing morale.
Now, in the end, my players left this room with the scary shadows until they were significantly above level 2 on average, and had several magical weapons to fight them with, so this fight wasn't quite as tough as it could have been. But I don't mind! I really enjoyed watching my players plan and execute this "heist", negotiating with the gnomes to do the hard work of digging a shaft (which is now a permanent alternate entrance to the second level for the PCs), and creatively using invisibility to get the idol out of the room while taking minimal damage from the shadows. The shadows didn't end up being a very significant threat, but it was still a highly memorable session!
Monday, September 25, 2017
Idalium Game 62: Shadow Boxing
Session date: Monday, September 26, 2016
Game date: Saturday, March 15, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10899/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 12538/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1188/2000
Adrien, Fighter 1, hp 4, xp 0/2000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3833/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 544/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 6/1250
We had a new player join us this session, and some time was taken at the beginning to walk her through rolling up a character, buying equipment, etc., as well as delivering the campaign "elevator pitch" and explaining the basic premise. And so a fighter named Adrien joined the party.
Their first order of business was to do some shopping in the city, in preparation for their intended "heist" of the dazzlingly gilded idol guarded by demonic shadow beings. They purchased a wheeled hand cart, a block and tackle system for lifting the idol out of the chamber, and picked up their specially-commissioned leather harness that they intended to use to lift the idol. They returned to the Rusty Lantern tavern with all this stuff and stashed it in their secure storage closet in the basement, before changing into their adventuring gear and descending into the dungeon.
In the Temple of Hedonism, on their way to the stairs to the second level, they encountered a single giant bee, buzzing around the benches surrounding the eerily rotating statue. Gulleck smirked and, donning his magical ring of animal control, sent the bee headlong into the animated crystal statue that guarded the stairs. The statue's fist shot forward, crushing the bee's thorax. Smiling with satisfaction, Gulleck led the way downstairs.
Since Adrien was new to the party, they brought her to the Temple of Fate and invited her to test her luck on the "Wheel of Fortune". She was strapped to the wheel and spun, and when she climbed back off the wheel nothing seemed to be different, but the very next day she would receive a letter informing her that a relative (who she had never heard of until now) had passed away and left her a house (albeit in poor condition and in one of the most rundown neighborhoods of the city).
The party proceeded with a clear mission in mind. They made their way along the hallway until they came to the door that led into a room drenched in magical pitch blackness. Beyond the room was the frightening shrine with the idol and associated ceremonial items, all of which gleamed of gold and jewels. The adventurers wanted to test a few theories about the shadowy guards. Some stayed watch at the door, while Gulleck and Caryatide carefully made their way through the dark room, following the wall until they found the opening to the shrine.
Gulleck borrowed Caryatid's ring of invisibility and slipped it on. Caryatid cast a Shield spell upon herself for additional protection, and then an Invisibility spell. They wanted to see if the shadows would be able to detect them while invisible. They stepped cautiously into the room. Everything was as it was before: sickly green flames flickered from torch sconces on the walls. Along the south wall, the disturbing demonic idol squatted on a bloodstained stone altar. In front of it were various ceremonial gilded and jeweled objects: a chalice, a curved dagger, etc. Next to the altar was a wooden stand on which was draped a ceremonial robe, embroidered with silver and gold and studded with gemstones, and a matching headdress. The green flames cast eerie shadows that flickered and twitched anxiously, and Gulleck could feel his heart leap to his throat as an unnerving fear settled within him. But so far, all was still. He moved further into the room, and still there was no response.
Satisfied with this experiment, Gulleck decided to make the day a profitable one, and quickly snatched the robe and headdress from the stand. As he did so, the shadows on the walls began to coalesce and converge into several man-shaped forms, lengthening and drifting forward off of the walls...
Gulleck bolted for the exit, pursued by the shadows. He yelled as he ran, and the other party members guarding the door called back to him to guide him to the exit. As Gulleck ran, he ran the chilling touch of a shadow, draining the energy from his body and leaving him feeling tangibly weaker. But then he was back in the hall, in the light of Simon's glowing magical sword. The shadows did not follow him into the hall.
Meanwhile, Caryatid had a brainstorm and theorized that the green flames were the source of the shadows and if they could be doused, the shadows would disappear. She drew forth a vial of holy water, borrowed from Brother Chase, opened it, and attempted to douse the flames with the sanctified water. Unfortunately, the water poured through the flames as if they didn't exist, making a puddle on the floor. This action drew the attention of more shadows, although Caryatid had an advantage of still being invisible. She quietly slipped through the room and followed Gulleck back into the hall.
They made it out of the dungeon without further incident, and stowed the robe and headdress in their vault. They intended to sell them at the semi-annual magic auction, once they completed the heist and obtained the idol and the other ceremonial items. I gave them experience points for a "base value" of the robe and headdress now, with the understanding that they would not receive further XP when they sold the items at the auction, regardless of what the actual final bid was.
Not a bad first delve for Adrien: an unexpected inheritance plus almost 500 XP from the treasure they recovered!
Game date: Saturday, March 15, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10899/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 12538/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1188/2000
Adrien, Fighter 1, hp 4, xp 0/2000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3833/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 544/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 6/1250
We had a new player join us this session, and some time was taken at the beginning to walk her through rolling up a character, buying equipment, etc., as well as delivering the campaign "elevator pitch" and explaining the basic premise. And so a fighter named Adrien joined the party.
Their first order of business was to do some shopping in the city, in preparation for their intended "heist" of the dazzlingly gilded idol guarded by demonic shadow beings. They purchased a wheeled hand cart, a block and tackle system for lifting the idol out of the chamber, and picked up their specially-commissioned leather harness that they intended to use to lift the idol. They returned to the Rusty Lantern tavern with all this stuff and stashed it in their secure storage closet in the basement, before changing into their adventuring gear and descending into the dungeon.
In the Temple of Hedonism, on their way to the stairs to the second level, they encountered a single giant bee, buzzing around the benches surrounding the eerily rotating statue. Gulleck smirked and, donning his magical ring of animal control, sent the bee headlong into the animated crystal statue that guarded the stairs. The statue's fist shot forward, crushing the bee's thorax. Smiling with satisfaction, Gulleck led the way downstairs.
Since Adrien was new to the party, they brought her to the Temple of Fate and invited her to test her luck on the "Wheel of Fortune". She was strapped to the wheel and spun, and when she climbed back off the wheel nothing seemed to be different, but the very next day she would receive a letter informing her that a relative (who she had never heard of until now) had passed away and left her a house (albeit in poor condition and in one of the most rundown neighborhoods of the city).
The party proceeded with a clear mission in mind. They made their way along the hallway until they came to the door that led into a room drenched in magical pitch blackness. Beyond the room was the frightening shrine with the idol and associated ceremonial items, all of which gleamed of gold and jewels. The adventurers wanted to test a few theories about the shadowy guards. Some stayed watch at the door, while Gulleck and Caryatide carefully made their way through the dark room, following the wall until they found the opening to the shrine.
Gulleck borrowed Caryatid's ring of invisibility and slipped it on. Caryatid cast a Shield spell upon herself for additional protection, and then an Invisibility spell. They wanted to see if the shadows would be able to detect them while invisible. They stepped cautiously into the room. Everything was as it was before: sickly green flames flickered from torch sconces on the walls. Along the south wall, the disturbing demonic idol squatted on a bloodstained stone altar. In front of it were various ceremonial gilded and jeweled objects: a chalice, a curved dagger, etc. Next to the altar was a wooden stand on which was draped a ceremonial robe, embroidered with silver and gold and studded with gemstones, and a matching headdress. The green flames cast eerie shadows that flickered and twitched anxiously, and Gulleck could feel his heart leap to his throat as an unnerving fear settled within him. But so far, all was still. He moved further into the room, and still there was no response.
Satisfied with this experiment, Gulleck decided to make the day a profitable one, and quickly snatched the robe and headdress from the stand. As he did so, the shadows on the walls began to coalesce and converge into several man-shaped forms, lengthening and drifting forward off of the walls...
Gulleck bolted for the exit, pursued by the shadows. He yelled as he ran, and the other party members guarding the door called back to him to guide him to the exit. As Gulleck ran, he ran the chilling touch of a shadow, draining the energy from his body and leaving him feeling tangibly weaker. But then he was back in the hall, in the light of Simon's glowing magical sword. The shadows did not follow him into the hall.
Meanwhile, Caryatid had a brainstorm and theorized that the green flames were the source of the shadows and if they could be doused, the shadows would disappear. She drew forth a vial of holy water, borrowed from Brother Chase, opened it, and attempted to douse the flames with the sanctified water. Unfortunately, the water poured through the flames as if they didn't exist, making a puddle on the floor. This action drew the attention of more shadows, although Caryatid had an advantage of still being invisible. She quietly slipped through the room and followed Gulleck back into the hall.
They made it out of the dungeon without further incident, and stowed the robe and headdress in their vault. They intended to sell them at the semi-annual magic auction, once they completed the heist and obtained the idol and the other ceremonial items. I gave them experience points for a "base value" of the robe and headdress now, with the understanding that they would not receive further XP when they sold the items at the auction, regardless of what the actual final bid was.
Not a bad first delve for Adrien: an unexpected inheritance plus almost 500 XP from the treasure they recovered!
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Idalium Game 61: Talking to the Wall
Session date: Monday, August 29, 2016
Game date: Saturday, February 22, 209 to Monday, February 24, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10214/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11853/20000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3490/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 184/1500
A small group this evening, and no plan other than to explore some areas of the second level that they had not yet been to. In the city, the adventurers stopped in at a tailor and picked up the five togas they had commissioned, exact replicas of the embroidered togas that allowed them access to the Temple of Hedonism in the undercity below. Caryatid even made a little tiny toga for her pet monkey Marcel.
They entered the dungeon and made their way uneventfully (yes, the new togas were accepted by the crystal living statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level) to the northern part of the second level. They were exploring an old abandoned tavern kitchen, when they spied some old casks up on a high shelf. Meat reached up to investigate, but accidentally knocked down a cask of rancid semiliquid bacon grease, drenching him in the strong-smelling fat.
Rather than continue on, the adventurers decided to return to the surface to let Meat have a bath before returning to the dungeon in the afternoon. (Such a pity; the strong smelling grease meant that I would roll for wandering monsters every turn rather than every other turn!)
Anyway, a few hours later they returned, with a freshly laundered Meat only faintly smelling of bacon. Delving back into the dungeon, the party made their way to an unexplored area at the north end of the second level. On the way they ran into a trio of dungeon urchins who were tense and angry. They demanded food from the adventurers, but bolted away when Gulleck stepped forward to try to talk some respect into the youngsters. In an former tavern, they encountered a group of bandits who were sitting around counting their illgotten loot. The bandits leered at the adventurers, and demanded a toll of 100 gold darics apiece to pass through this room. Everyone rolled their eyes. Gulleck consulted his maps and realized that they already knew an alternate way around the bandits. So they casually left the room, went around the hall and poked their heads in on the other side to say, "Nice try, guys." The bandits turned beet red, and the adventurers jogged off laughing.
Exploring some apartments off of a main hall, Gulleck and Meat found a chest of drawers that seemed undisturbed. Meat pulled a drawer open roughly, and there was a sudden crack of glass shattering. A greenish mist wafted up from the drawer and spread out quickly. The rest of the party were standing well enough back, but Gulleck and Meat gasped and clutched their throats as they breathed in the mist. Their limbs went numb and they slumped to the cold stone floor, unable to lift an arm or leg but aware of everything going on around them.
Caryatid and and Brother Chase decided for some reason to explore the next room while they waited for the numbness to wear off from Gulleck and Meat. They always say "Never split the party" and here we had an example of why it's a bad idea. While Caryatid and her bodyguard were elsewhere, a half dozen orcs came sauntering into the room, leering and snickering at Gulleck and Meat. "Welly welly well, what have we here?" sneered the orc leader. He poked at Gulleck's nose a few times to make sure he wasn't a threat. "That sure is a nice shiny axe this dwarf's got..." he said, plucking it from Gulleck's belt and hefting it. "I wonder what other goodies these guys have..."
Around this time Caryatid and Brother Chase returned and before the orcs could react Caryatid hit them with a face full of Web. Half of them, along with Gulleck and Meat, were caught in the sticky strands. The other three orcs failed a morale check and bolted out of the door. Caryatid had no patience to wake for Gulleck and Meat to break free of the web (once their paralysis wore off) and didn't care to banter with the three trapped orcs, so she calmly lit the web on fire. The orcs all perished in the conflagration, while Gulleck and Meat, having the luck of experienced adventurers (i.e., more hit points!) were shielded from the worst of the flames by the bodies of the orcs, and were merely uncomfortably singed.
While Gulleck and Meat were still recovering from the paralysis gas, they were interrupted by yet another wandering monster encounter. But this turned out to be a rival NPC party: "Sallies Forth", a party composed of no less than four identical copies of "Psycho" Sally, a manic hobbit who had once been a member of Shorty's Sirens but had struck out on her own once she discovered that the resurrection pool could duplicate you. I said "identical" back there, but really, you could tell the order in which they had been cloned, with each one being a degraded copy of the previous one, like in that Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity.
After a bit of banter with the Psycho Sallies, and once Gulleck and Meat had regained control of their limbs, they set out again exploring the north end of the level. They found an old bedroom, and on one wall a mural of a court jester was painted in old, faded paint. As they approached it for a better look, they were startled to find the paint seeming to flow and move. The jester came to life and attempted to speak to them! Unfortunately, no one in the party could speak Ancient Idalian, so the jester's words were merely a babble of unintelligible nonsense, make even more surreal by his exaggerated mime-like gestures as he tried to communicate with them. The jester didn't understand Modern Idalian, either, so he and the party just stood there babbling and gesticulating at one another. Gulleck and Caryatid got annoyed by the uselessness of the loud gibberish coming from the jester. Gulleck grumbled, "Let's make a note to come back here with some paint." Caryatid replied, "Oh, I was thinking paint thinner!"
In an adjacent room, they found a stone statue of a modestly dressed woman, with one hand outstretched. There was writing inscribed on her garment. Now, the party could not understand Ancient Idalian, but they did possess a pair of magical spectacles that allowed them to read it, and they saw that it said, "I shall guard my treasure until I am wed." They puzzled over this for a while, trying to come up with ways of marrying a stone statue. I had to keep my poker face under control, as only a couple of sessions ago, they had found a stone ring in a honeymoon suite not too far from here. Gulleck was still carrying it around and had it written on his character sheet, but his player kept passing over it as he looked for something useful. Eventually, they would figure it out, but not this day!
Before leaving the dungeon, the adventurers managed to find a room that was marked on a treasure map they had acquired quite some time ago. Just as the map indicated, there was a secret compartment behind a painting of the hills surrounding Idalium, and in the compartment were several sacks of coins from Ancient Idalium, untouched these two hundred some years! Hundreds of silver, gold, and platinum coins filled the bags, and flush with satisfaction at finding this substantial treasure, the adventurers returned to the surface.
Game date: Saturday, February 22, 209 to Monday, February 24, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10214/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11853/20000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3490/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 184/1500
A small group this evening, and no plan other than to explore some areas of the second level that they had not yet been to. In the city, the adventurers stopped in at a tailor and picked up the five togas they had commissioned, exact replicas of the embroidered togas that allowed them access to the Temple of Hedonism in the undercity below. Caryatid even made a little tiny toga for her pet monkey Marcel.
They entered the dungeon and made their way uneventfully (yes, the new togas were accepted by the crystal living statue that guarded the stairs down to the second level) to the northern part of the second level. They were exploring an old abandoned tavern kitchen, when they spied some old casks up on a high shelf. Meat reached up to investigate, but accidentally knocked down a cask of rancid semiliquid bacon grease, drenching him in the strong-smelling fat.
Rather than continue on, the adventurers decided to return to the surface to let Meat have a bath before returning to the dungeon in the afternoon. (Such a pity; the strong smelling grease meant that I would roll for wandering monsters every turn rather than every other turn!)
Anyway, a few hours later they returned, with a freshly laundered Meat only faintly smelling of bacon. Delving back into the dungeon, the party made their way to an unexplored area at the north end of the second level. On the way they ran into a trio of dungeon urchins who were tense and angry. They demanded food from the adventurers, but bolted away when Gulleck stepped forward to try to talk some respect into the youngsters. In an former tavern, they encountered a group of bandits who were sitting around counting their illgotten loot. The bandits leered at the adventurers, and demanded a toll of 100 gold darics apiece to pass through this room. Everyone rolled their eyes. Gulleck consulted his maps and realized that they already knew an alternate way around the bandits. So they casually left the room, went around the hall and poked their heads in on the other side to say, "Nice try, guys." The bandits turned beet red, and the adventurers jogged off laughing.
Exploring some apartments off of a main hall, Gulleck and Meat found a chest of drawers that seemed undisturbed. Meat pulled a drawer open roughly, and there was a sudden crack of glass shattering. A greenish mist wafted up from the drawer and spread out quickly. The rest of the party were standing well enough back, but Gulleck and Meat gasped and clutched their throats as they breathed in the mist. Their limbs went numb and they slumped to the cold stone floor, unable to lift an arm or leg but aware of everything going on around them.
Caryatid and and Brother Chase decided for some reason to explore the next room while they waited for the numbness to wear off from Gulleck and Meat. They always say "Never split the party" and here we had an example of why it's a bad idea. While Caryatid and her bodyguard were elsewhere, a half dozen orcs came sauntering into the room, leering and snickering at Gulleck and Meat. "Welly welly well, what have we here?" sneered the orc leader. He poked at Gulleck's nose a few times to make sure he wasn't a threat. "That sure is a nice shiny axe this dwarf's got..." he said, plucking it from Gulleck's belt and hefting it. "I wonder what other goodies these guys have..."
Around this time Caryatid and Brother Chase returned and before the orcs could react Caryatid hit them with a face full of Web. Half of them, along with Gulleck and Meat, were caught in the sticky strands. The other three orcs failed a morale check and bolted out of the door. Caryatid had no patience to wake for Gulleck and Meat to break free of the web (once their paralysis wore off) and didn't care to banter with the three trapped orcs, so she calmly lit the web on fire. The orcs all perished in the conflagration, while Gulleck and Meat, having the luck of experienced adventurers (i.e., more hit points!) were shielded from the worst of the flames by the bodies of the orcs, and were merely uncomfortably singed.
While Gulleck and Meat were still recovering from the paralysis gas, they were interrupted by yet another wandering monster encounter. But this turned out to be a rival NPC party: "Sallies Forth", a party composed of no less than four identical copies of "Psycho" Sally, a manic hobbit who had once been a member of Shorty's Sirens but had struck out on her own once she discovered that the resurrection pool could duplicate you. I said "identical" back there, but really, you could tell the order in which they had been cloned, with each one being a degraded copy of the previous one, like in that Michael Keaton movie Multiplicity.
After a bit of banter with the Psycho Sallies, and once Gulleck and Meat had regained control of their limbs, they set out again exploring the north end of the level. They found an old bedroom, and on one wall a mural of a court jester was painted in old, faded paint. As they approached it for a better look, they were startled to find the paint seeming to flow and move. The jester came to life and attempted to speak to them! Unfortunately, no one in the party could speak Ancient Idalian, so the jester's words were merely a babble of unintelligible nonsense, make even more surreal by his exaggerated mime-like gestures as he tried to communicate with them. The jester didn't understand Modern Idalian, either, so he and the party just stood there babbling and gesticulating at one another. Gulleck and Caryatid got annoyed by the uselessness of the loud gibberish coming from the jester. Gulleck grumbled, "Let's make a note to come back here with some paint." Caryatid replied, "Oh, I was thinking paint thinner!"
In an adjacent room, they found a stone statue of a modestly dressed woman, with one hand outstretched. There was writing inscribed on her garment. Now, the party could not understand Ancient Idalian, but they did possess a pair of magical spectacles that allowed them to read it, and they saw that it said, "I shall guard my treasure until I am wed." They puzzled over this for a while, trying to come up with ways of marrying a stone statue. I had to keep my poker face under control, as only a couple of sessions ago, they had found a stone ring in a honeymoon suite not too far from here. Gulleck was still carrying it around and had it written on his character sheet, but his player kept passing over it as he looked for something useful. Eventually, they would figure it out, but not this day!
Before leaving the dungeon, the adventurers managed to find a room that was marked on a treasure map they had acquired quite some time ago. Just as the map indicated, there was a secret compartment behind a painting of the hills surrounding Idalium, and in the compartment were several sacks of coins from Ancient Idalium, untouched these two hundred some years! Hundreds of silver, gold, and platinum coins filled the bags, and flush with satisfaction at finding this substantial treasure, the adventurers returned to the surface.
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Idalium Game 60: Making the Rounds
Session date: Monday, August 29, 2016
Game date: Saturday, February 22, 209 to Monday, February 24, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10157/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11790/20000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3461/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 153/1500
Sort of an unfocused ramble of an adventure today. We only had two players, and they weren't sure of what to do. Ideas were floated: give the magical wardrobe to the goblins as a Trojan Horse to gain secretive entry to the Goblin Palace? Foment a feud between Caryatid the Green and the goblins?
First they went to "Crazy Harry", the apothecary, to see if he had prepared an antidote to the enchanted goblin fruit they had brought to him last session. "Yes!" said Crazy Harry. "Although it is of limited effect. I believe it can break the enchantment that the fruit casts over a person, but only so long as they are still human. Once they have been transformed into a goblin, I don't think anything could bring them back!"
Crazy Harry wanted 500 silver shekels for a dose of the antidote, but they haggled him down to 300 shekels. They also purchased two vials of "stirge repellant". "Ah, yes," said Crazy Harry. "So, the good news is, stirges can't stand the smell. They hate it! The bad news is, just about every other kind of vermin loves it. It attracts them! Bugs, rats, worms, you name it."
Gulleck thought that sounded like more of a feature than a bug, and paid extra to get it in breakable glass vials.
Into the dungeon they went, but ran into a scavenging party of orcs almost immediately, in the town square of the undercity. The orcs recognized them and attacked instantly. Caryatid cast a magic missile at one orc, and Brother Chase followed it up by caving in the orc's skull with his mace. Meanwhile, Gulleck and Meat quickly dealt with the orcs that attacked them. The other two orcs ran screaming into the dark.
The adventurers collected a number of gold coins from the orcs, as well as a pouch of the crumbly off-white powder they knew as "rage dust". Then they checked the magical talking statues that stood around the fountain in the middle of the square. As they had arranged, the gnomes had left them a message, saying that they were almost finished digging the shaft down to the second level, and would await them at the dig site.
They made their way quickly to the small temple where the gnomes had been digging a shaft down to the lower level, hopefully emerging in the room that contained the frightening shadow monsters (and more importantly, the gold and gem encrusted idol and ceremonial items). The shaft was finished now, and all that remained was to chisel out and lift away the stone slab that was part of the ceiling below. The group wanted to wait until everyone could be there, including Tod and Tyrriel, so they thanked the gnomes and said they would visit them at their quarters in the mines when ready. Everyone packed up and left, and Caryatid cast wizard lock upon the door on the way out, to discourage any unwanted visitors.
The fight with the orcs had taken a bit out of the adventurers, so they returned to the surface to rest a bit before attempting another delve. On Monday morning they reunited and headed back into the dungeon, this time heading down to the second level to check in on Caryatid the Green. They passed through the Temple of Hedonism, which was occupied by half a dozen fresh-faced youths, drinking wine and playing the harp languidly. The adventurers weren't sure if they had arrived pre- or post-orgy, but it was certainly awkward.
They checked on the orcs, but after the recent pitched battle they'd had, the orcs appeared to have retreated into their lair, and no orcs were to be seen at the entrance to their domain. Moving on for now, they visited Caryatid the Green in her apartment, who was as before in good spirits and happy to receive them as guests. There was a large strange man, sitting in an armchair with his back to them, facing the magical fire that crackled away but shed no heat.
"Oh, I've been busy since we last spoke," said Caryatid the Green. "The lovely Professor Zinn provided me with such useful information on anatomy, and physiology, and human biology... And I put all of that knowledge to good use! Can I introduce you to my new bodyguard?"
The man in the chair stood slowly and stiffly, and turned to face them. He wore a drab, shapeless coat. He loomed over even Meat and Brother Chase, and his eyes were dull. His skin was pale and blotchy, and it seemed there was some kind of tattoo at the base of his neck, almost like... stitching?
"He doesn't talk much," said Caryatid the Green. "He's really more of the strong and silent type. But the dungeon can be dangerous, you know. With him by my side, I have so much more freedom to roam and explore. No one dares to threaten me."
The adventurers made polite goodbyes and nervously left. Things with Caryatid were getting weirder and weirder, and they were grimly certain that she would have to be "dealt with" sooner or later.
On their way out, the adventurers decided to prank the orcs. Having stolen their big alarm gong several weeks ago, Gulleck had bought a tiny toy gong in a shop up in the city. Now he tossed that toy gong down the stairs that led to their lair. There was silence for a moment, and then a twang of a bowstring from down below and an arrow snapped on the wall next to Gulleck's head. He quickly slammed the door shut at the top of the stairs, and the adventurers laughed their way back out of the dungeon.
Game date: Saturday, February 22, 209 to Monday, February 24, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10157/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11790/20000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3461/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 153/1500
Sort of an unfocused ramble of an adventure today. We only had two players, and they weren't sure of what to do. Ideas were floated: give the magical wardrobe to the goblins as a Trojan Horse to gain secretive entry to the Goblin Palace? Foment a feud between Caryatid the Green and the goblins?
First they went to "Crazy Harry", the apothecary, to see if he had prepared an antidote to the enchanted goblin fruit they had brought to him last session. "Yes!" said Crazy Harry. "Although it is of limited effect. I believe it can break the enchantment that the fruit casts over a person, but only so long as they are still human. Once they have been transformed into a goblin, I don't think anything could bring them back!"
Crazy Harry wanted 500 silver shekels for a dose of the antidote, but they haggled him down to 300 shekels. They also purchased two vials of "stirge repellant". "Ah, yes," said Crazy Harry. "So, the good news is, stirges can't stand the smell. They hate it! The bad news is, just about every other kind of vermin loves it. It attracts them! Bugs, rats, worms, you name it."
Gulleck thought that sounded like more of a feature than a bug, and paid extra to get it in breakable glass vials.
Into the dungeon they went, but ran into a scavenging party of orcs almost immediately, in the town square of the undercity. The orcs recognized them and attacked instantly. Caryatid cast a magic missile at one orc, and Brother Chase followed it up by caving in the orc's skull with his mace. Meanwhile, Gulleck and Meat quickly dealt with the orcs that attacked them. The other two orcs ran screaming into the dark.
The adventurers collected a number of gold coins from the orcs, as well as a pouch of the crumbly off-white powder they knew as "rage dust". Then they checked the magical talking statues that stood around the fountain in the middle of the square. As they had arranged, the gnomes had left them a message, saying that they were almost finished digging the shaft down to the second level, and would await them at the dig site.
They made their way quickly to the small temple where the gnomes had been digging a shaft down to the lower level, hopefully emerging in the room that contained the frightening shadow monsters (and more importantly, the gold and gem encrusted idol and ceremonial items). The shaft was finished now, and all that remained was to chisel out and lift away the stone slab that was part of the ceiling below. The group wanted to wait until everyone could be there, including Tod and Tyrriel, so they thanked the gnomes and said they would visit them at their quarters in the mines when ready. Everyone packed up and left, and Caryatid cast wizard lock upon the door on the way out, to discourage any unwanted visitors.
The fight with the orcs had taken a bit out of the adventurers, so they returned to the surface to rest a bit before attempting another delve. On Monday morning they reunited and headed back into the dungeon, this time heading down to the second level to check in on Caryatid the Green. They passed through the Temple of Hedonism, which was occupied by half a dozen fresh-faced youths, drinking wine and playing the harp languidly. The adventurers weren't sure if they had arrived pre- or post-orgy, but it was certainly awkward.
They checked on the orcs, but after the recent pitched battle they'd had, the orcs appeared to have retreated into their lair, and no orcs were to be seen at the entrance to their domain. Moving on for now, they visited Caryatid the Green in her apartment, who was as before in good spirits and happy to receive them as guests. There was a large strange man, sitting in an armchair with his back to them, facing the magical fire that crackled away but shed no heat.
"Oh, I've been busy since we last spoke," said Caryatid the Green. "The lovely Professor Zinn provided me with such useful information on anatomy, and physiology, and human biology... And I put all of that knowledge to good use! Can I introduce you to my new bodyguard?"
The man in the chair stood slowly and stiffly, and turned to face them. He wore a drab, shapeless coat. He loomed over even Meat and Brother Chase, and his eyes were dull. His skin was pale and blotchy, and it seemed there was some kind of tattoo at the base of his neck, almost like... stitching?
"He doesn't talk much," said Caryatid the Green. "He's really more of the strong and silent type. But the dungeon can be dangerous, you know. With him by my side, I have so much more freedom to roam and explore. No one dares to threaten me."
The adventurers made polite goodbyes and nervously left. Things with Caryatid were getting weirder and weirder, and they were grimly certain that she would have to be "dealt with" sooner or later.
On their way out, the adventurers decided to prank the orcs. Having stolen their big alarm gong several weeks ago, Gulleck had bought a tiny toy gong in a shop up in the city. Now he tossed that toy gong down the stairs that led to their lair. There was silence for a moment, and then a twang of a bowstring from down below and an arrow snapped on the wall next to Gulleck's head. He quickly slammed the door shut at the top of the stairs, and the adventurers laughed their way back out of the dungeon.
Player Journals from Session 59
From the Diary of Caryatid
I am afraid that my death has
had an ill-affect on Marcel. I must seek a monkey therapist to help him
cope with his breakdown. Although, since my resurrection, I feel that he
does not fully comprehend what has happened. I’m also beginning to
research spells and potions to grow him wings; he clearly needs more
liberation beyond his own Fez and toga. I think I'd also like to learn a
spell which will mute that dwarf who instigated that berserk Hippie
into a fit of unstoppable rage. Any attempt I made to diffuse that
situation only led to my demise.
Brother Chase is required to
report to the Lost Church of the Missing Light to complete some
paperwork and standardized testing. He has shared with me that he will
also be getting his highlights touched-up and take care of some basic
manscaping. I approve.
Sunday, May 21, 2017
Idalium Game 59: Bong Inspectors
Session date: Monday, August 15, 2016
Game date: Saturday, February 8, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10147/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11780/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1177/2000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3456/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 147/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 0/1250
Another Monday evening, another delve into the dungeons below the bustling city of Idalium. Simon's player decided to hire a retainer, and rolled up a thief named Remus Thynerius, in the hopes of filling some gaps in the party skillset. The party did a little bit of above-ground adventuring before entering the dungeon. They visited "Crazy Harry", the apothecary, and showed him the preternaturally beautiful fruit that they had smuggled out of the feast in the palace of the Goblin King (in a doggy bag, I guess). He believed he could "reverse engineer" the magic of the fruit and concoct an antidote for those ensorcelled by the goblin food. "Come back in a week, and we'll see what I've got." They also visted the elderly Professor Zinn, in his 5th floor apartment overlooking the city from the top of the Street of Steps. They asked him about the goblin food and he confirmed that legends told how the food of the goblins first casts a charm over those who eat it, convincing them that the goblins have their best interests at heart, and then, if enough food is eaten over a period of days, provokes a horrible transformation of a human into a goblin! The professor was dubious that there was any way to reverse this transformation, but agreed in theory that perhaps the charm could be broken if done so early enough in the process.
The party descended into the dungeons, intent on exploring the northwest area of the second level. On the way, they ran into their erstwhile retainer Brother (now Father!) Jedidiah, who was now the leader of a party of adventuring bandits, having converted them to the path of God. They bid him good luck and continued on their way, stopping at the entrance to the orcs' lair to leave the remaining goblin fruit in the bowl the orcs had set out for "honor system tolls". Concerned that the dungeon urchins might steal it to eat, they chalked a note "For orcs only!"
As they made their way north, they stopped at a door behind which they heard buzzing, and Simon used his "clarity" medallion to read the minds of anyone behind the door. He heard gutteral, angry voices in his mind - orcs who were trapped in a room and afraid of the giant bees! They laughed and continued on their way.
They found a room with a brass plaque outside reading (in Ancient Idalian) "Hotel Lethia Honeymoon Suite". Inside was a once-lavish but now tattered bedroom, with a canopy bed fallen into moth-eaten rags, a large dry "hot tub", and broken down and dry-rotted furniture. In a decayed chest of drawers they found a plain but polished stone ring, a bit larger than anyone's fingers. Gulleck tucked it away in his backpack for safe keeping.
Further down the hall, they came to another door with a brass plaque that read "Hotel Lethia". The door was sealed shut with rags that seemed to be impregnated with wax, and a giant red "X" was painted across it in drippy red paint.
"Nope!" everyone said in unison and continued north.
Finally they came to another door, with a sign hung on it by a piece of wire. The sign read, "Home Sweet Home" and below that it said "Monsters Stay Out!" This area of the adventurers map read, "Hippieland, avoid at all costs!" and we were about to discover why. Gulleck knocked on the door.
You ever have a joke that popped into your head, and you waited patiently for over a year to spring it, and then when your players finally got there they totally jumped the gun on the punchline? That's exactly what happened here. I said, "... Who is it?" in a wheezy voice, and everyone jumped in with "Dave's not here man!"
Ahem. So this is how it was *supposed* to go.
*knock knock*
"...who is it?"
"It's Gulleck!"
"... ... Gulleck's not here, man!"
To my players' credit, they humored me and did this the proper way and played along.
"No, this is Gulleck!"
"... Who??? Gulleck's not here."
And so on. Eventually we got an answer to "Who is it?" Last time with the orcs it was "Gong Inspectors", and well, now it was "Bong Inspectors"!
The hippies opened the door and were pleased to see their acquaintances come to visit. "Hey, man, good to see you! You wanna come in and check out our digs? We got a real groovy thing going on here. Welcome, welcome, travelers!" The adventurers nervously entered a large hall with several stone pillars supporting the ceiling. There was a firepit alight in the middle of the room, with some sort of meat roasting on a spit above it. Bedrolls and blankets were strewn about. The two hippies who invited the adventurers in introduced themselves as Jimmy (or was it Jimi?) and Linda.
"Hey, come with us, we'll give you the mystery tour of the place!"
The hippies led the group through a number of rooms, and the faces of the adventurers grew more nervous and dismayed all the while. In the first room chairs, tables, and other accumulated furniture were stacked neatly and incredibly precisely to the ceiling. Two other hippies were engaged in deep concentration measuring the furniture and making minor adjustments.
The next room was a larder, full of all sorts of horrid foods: dead rats (giant and otherwise), spiders, centipedes, and other vermin. "Uh... is this what you eat down here?" asked Gulleck. "Hey man," said Jimmy, "don't knock it til you've tried it. Anyway, you get used to it after a while. You gotta do what you gotta do, dig? Right on."
The next room was empty apart from hundreds of intricate chalk spirals and concentric circles covering all of the floor, walls, and ceiling. Two more hippies were hard at work drawing more.
Finally, they came to a storeroom. "This is our room of treasures!" bragged Linda. Along one wall, a hippie was carefully arranging piles of silver shekels. First there were two silver coins on floor, then a stack of two coins, then a stack of three, then five, eight, thirteen, and half a dozen piles after that, each increasing in height. Against another wall were neat stacks of old adventuring equipment, apparently itemized into categories: tidy stacks of backpacks, armor, weapons, iron spikes, etc.
Gulleck looked at the old adventuring gear. "You, uh, don't use this stuff anymore?"
"No, man, that was, like, a long, long time ago. Now we just take it easy here, you know?"
"Well, why don't you, uh, maybe sell that stuff and buy some better food?"
Jimmy's eyes twitched a bit and narrowed. "Why would we want to do that? We spent hours and hours arranging those things like that."
"Well, I mean, then you'd have more food and you wouldn't have piles of junk."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY???" screeched Jimmy. "THAT JUNK IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US!!!"
"Whoa!" exclaimed Caryatid. "Dial it back!"
"DIAL IT BACK???" screamed Linda. "DIAL IT BACK!!!???"
And without warning Linda lunged at Caryatid. Caryatid slipped on her ring of invisibility, but Linda's hands reached for the last place Caryatid had been and closed around her throat, choking her. The hippie (did I say they were hippies? Actually, berserkers!) who had been counting the shekels cowered in the corner, arms wrapped around his head.
Jimmy jumped at Gulleck, and Gulleck, who was loath to respond with lethal force against these clearly unhinged people, sidestepped him and tripped him as he attacked. Dwarven jujitsu! Gulleck quickly sat on Jimmy and held his arms behind his back.
Caryatid struggled but was unable to free herself from Linda's choking grasp, and was strangled to death, becoming visible as she slumped to the ground. Now, do you remember the little monkey that Caryatid acquired in a far-away land, named Marcel, and carried around on her shoulder? Well, these are the moments when decisions like that pay off. When Marcel saw his mistress strangled to death, he went absolutely stark raving insane. He pulled a dagger from Caryatid's belt and stabbed Linda again and again until she fell, blood spraying everywhere.
"LINDA!!!" screamed the cowering hippie, and charged the adventurers. Remus took the brunt of the impact, and he was slammed into the stone wall. His head cracked against the wall and he fell to the floor, dead. Marcel leapt off of Linda's corpse to stab at this hippie with the dagger, opening up deep wounds as the knife rose and fell. The hippie fell with a shriek. It was a one monkey bloodbath (all attack and damage rolled completely legitimately, I should add!).
Jimmy wouldn't stop struggling, so Gulleck whacked him on the head with the flat of his axe and he fell stunned. The surviving adventurers tied Jimmy up with some rope and then waited for him to regain consciousness.
"Oh no, man, what happened! Somethin' really bad..." Jimmy looked around with wide eyes at the four bloody corpses surrounding him. "Oh, man, this is a real bummer..."
Gulleck and Simon did their best to keep Jimmy calm as they tried to explain. Jimmy seemed contrite. Gulleck told him about the pool at the south end of the dungeon level that could revive the recently deceased and suggested he try bringing Linda and the other to the pool. Jimmy agreed to escort Gulleck out of the hippies' den, so that Caryatid and Remus could be revived. They passed through a lounge, where four hippies lay on couches and bedrolls, staring vaguely into space or meditating.
"Whoa," said one of the hippies as Caryatid's and Remus's corpses were carried through. "Bad trip, man."
The ceremonial drums of the orcs were echoing through the halls as the adventures carries the bodies of the comrades to the resurrection pool. The pool was just across a hall from the orc temple, and they could hear an orc's voice raised in exhortation: "Oh, great Ashaku'mar! Grant us retribution against Gong Inspectors!"
Caryatid and Remus were lowered into the mystical pool of slippery warm liquid, where they emerged gasping moments later, fully healed of all wounds and marks. The group fled upstairs and returned to the Rusty Lantern tavern, with nothing but war stories to show for their efforts.
Game date: Saturday, February 8, 209
PCs:
Gulleck Stonefoot, Dwarf 4, hp 23, xp 10147/17000
Caryatid, Magic-user 4, hp 19, xp 11780/20000
Simon Sackwell, Halfling 1, hp 4, xp 1177/2000
Retainers:
Manley "Meat" Smythe, Fighter 2, hp 13, xp 3456/4000
Brother Chase Pike, Cleric 1, hp 6, xp 147/1500
Remus Thynerius, Thief 1, hp 2, xp 0/1250
Another Monday evening, another delve into the dungeons below the bustling city of Idalium. Simon's player decided to hire a retainer, and rolled up a thief named Remus Thynerius, in the hopes of filling some gaps in the party skillset. The party did a little bit of above-ground adventuring before entering the dungeon. They visited "Crazy Harry", the apothecary, and showed him the preternaturally beautiful fruit that they had smuggled out of the feast in the palace of the Goblin King (in a doggy bag, I guess). He believed he could "reverse engineer" the magic of the fruit and concoct an antidote for those ensorcelled by the goblin food. "Come back in a week, and we'll see what I've got." They also visted the elderly Professor Zinn, in his 5th floor apartment overlooking the city from the top of the Street of Steps. They asked him about the goblin food and he confirmed that legends told how the food of the goblins first casts a charm over those who eat it, convincing them that the goblins have their best interests at heart, and then, if enough food is eaten over a period of days, provokes a horrible transformation of a human into a goblin! The professor was dubious that there was any way to reverse this transformation, but agreed in theory that perhaps the charm could be broken if done so early enough in the process.
The party descended into the dungeons, intent on exploring the northwest area of the second level. On the way, they ran into their erstwhile retainer Brother (now Father!) Jedidiah, who was now the leader of a party of adventuring bandits, having converted them to the path of God. They bid him good luck and continued on their way, stopping at the entrance to the orcs' lair to leave the remaining goblin fruit in the bowl the orcs had set out for "honor system tolls". Concerned that the dungeon urchins might steal it to eat, they chalked a note "For orcs only!"
As they made their way north, they stopped at a door behind which they heard buzzing, and Simon used his "clarity" medallion to read the minds of anyone behind the door. He heard gutteral, angry voices in his mind - orcs who were trapped in a room and afraid of the giant bees! They laughed and continued on their way.
They found a room with a brass plaque outside reading (in Ancient Idalian) "Hotel Lethia Honeymoon Suite". Inside was a once-lavish but now tattered bedroom, with a canopy bed fallen into moth-eaten rags, a large dry "hot tub", and broken down and dry-rotted furniture. In a decayed chest of drawers they found a plain but polished stone ring, a bit larger than anyone's fingers. Gulleck tucked it away in his backpack for safe keeping.
Further down the hall, they came to another door with a brass plaque that read "Hotel Lethia". The door was sealed shut with rags that seemed to be impregnated with wax, and a giant red "X" was painted across it in drippy red paint.
"Nope!" everyone said in unison and continued north.
Finally they came to another door, with a sign hung on it by a piece of wire. The sign read, "Home Sweet Home" and below that it said "Monsters Stay Out!" This area of the adventurers map read, "Hippieland, avoid at all costs!" and we were about to discover why. Gulleck knocked on the door.
You ever have a joke that popped into your head, and you waited patiently for over a year to spring it, and then when your players finally got there they totally jumped the gun on the punchline? That's exactly what happened here. I said, "... Who is it?" in a wheezy voice, and everyone jumped in with "Dave's not here man!"
Ahem. So this is how it was *supposed* to go.
*knock knock*
"...who is it?"
"It's Gulleck!"
"... ... Gulleck's not here, man!"
To my players' credit, they humored me and did this the proper way and played along.
"No, this is Gulleck!"
"... Who??? Gulleck's not here."
And so on. Eventually we got an answer to "Who is it?" Last time with the orcs it was "Gong Inspectors", and well, now it was "Bong Inspectors"!
The hippies opened the door and were pleased to see their acquaintances come to visit. "Hey, man, good to see you! You wanna come in and check out our digs? We got a real groovy thing going on here. Welcome, welcome, travelers!" The adventurers nervously entered a large hall with several stone pillars supporting the ceiling. There was a firepit alight in the middle of the room, with some sort of meat roasting on a spit above it. Bedrolls and blankets were strewn about. The two hippies who invited the adventurers in introduced themselves as Jimmy (or was it Jimi?) and Linda.
"Hey, come with us, we'll give you the mystery tour of the place!"
The hippies led the group through a number of rooms, and the faces of the adventurers grew more nervous and dismayed all the while. In the first room chairs, tables, and other accumulated furniture were stacked neatly and incredibly precisely to the ceiling. Two other hippies were engaged in deep concentration measuring the furniture and making minor adjustments.
The next room was a larder, full of all sorts of horrid foods: dead rats (giant and otherwise), spiders, centipedes, and other vermin. "Uh... is this what you eat down here?" asked Gulleck. "Hey man," said Jimmy, "don't knock it til you've tried it. Anyway, you get used to it after a while. You gotta do what you gotta do, dig? Right on."
The next room was empty apart from hundreds of intricate chalk spirals and concentric circles covering all of the floor, walls, and ceiling. Two more hippies were hard at work drawing more.
Finally, they came to a storeroom. "This is our room of treasures!" bragged Linda. Along one wall, a hippie was carefully arranging piles of silver shekels. First there were two silver coins on floor, then a stack of two coins, then a stack of three, then five, eight, thirteen, and half a dozen piles after that, each increasing in height. Against another wall were neat stacks of old adventuring equipment, apparently itemized into categories: tidy stacks of backpacks, armor, weapons, iron spikes, etc.
Gulleck looked at the old adventuring gear. "You, uh, don't use this stuff anymore?"
"No, man, that was, like, a long, long time ago. Now we just take it easy here, you know?"
"Well, why don't you, uh, maybe sell that stuff and buy some better food?"
Jimmy's eyes twitched a bit and narrowed. "Why would we want to do that? We spent hours and hours arranging those things like that."
"Well, I mean, then you'd have more food and you wouldn't have piles of junk."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY???" screeched Jimmy. "THAT JUNK IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US!!!"
"Whoa!" exclaimed Caryatid. "Dial it back!"
"DIAL IT BACK???" screamed Linda. "DIAL IT BACK!!!???"
And without warning Linda lunged at Caryatid. Caryatid slipped on her ring of invisibility, but Linda's hands reached for the last place Caryatid had been and closed around her throat, choking her. The hippie (did I say they were hippies? Actually, berserkers!) who had been counting the shekels cowered in the corner, arms wrapped around his head.
Jimmy jumped at Gulleck, and Gulleck, who was loath to respond with lethal force against these clearly unhinged people, sidestepped him and tripped him as he attacked. Dwarven jujitsu! Gulleck quickly sat on Jimmy and held his arms behind his back.
Caryatid struggled but was unable to free herself from Linda's choking grasp, and was strangled to death, becoming visible as she slumped to the ground. Now, do you remember the little monkey that Caryatid acquired in a far-away land, named Marcel, and carried around on her shoulder? Well, these are the moments when decisions like that pay off. When Marcel saw his mistress strangled to death, he went absolutely stark raving insane. He pulled a dagger from Caryatid's belt and stabbed Linda again and again until she fell, blood spraying everywhere.
"LINDA!!!" screamed the cowering hippie, and charged the adventurers. Remus took the brunt of the impact, and he was slammed into the stone wall. His head cracked against the wall and he fell to the floor, dead. Marcel leapt off of Linda's corpse to stab at this hippie with the dagger, opening up deep wounds as the knife rose and fell. The hippie fell with a shriek. It was a one monkey bloodbath (all attack and damage rolled completely legitimately, I should add!).
Jimmy wouldn't stop struggling, so Gulleck whacked him on the head with the flat of his axe and he fell stunned. The surviving adventurers tied Jimmy up with some rope and then waited for him to regain consciousness.
"Oh no, man, what happened! Somethin' really bad..." Jimmy looked around with wide eyes at the four bloody corpses surrounding him. "Oh, man, this is a real bummer..."
Gulleck and Simon did their best to keep Jimmy calm as they tried to explain. Jimmy seemed contrite. Gulleck told him about the pool at the south end of the dungeon level that could revive the recently deceased and suggested he try bringing Linda and the other to the pool. Jimmy agreed to escort Gulleck out of the hippies' den, so that Caryatid and Remus could be revived. They passed through a lounge, where four hippies lay on couches and bedrolls, staring vaguely into space or meditating.
"Whoa," said one of the hippies as Caryatid's and Remus's corpses were carried through. "Bad trip, man."
The ceremonial drums of the orcs were echoing through the halls as the adventures carries the bodies of the comrades to the resurrection pool. The pool was just across a hall from the orc temple, and they could hear an orc's voice raised in exhortation: "Oh, great Ashaku'mar! Grant us retribution against Gong Inspectors!"
Caryatid and Remus were lowered into the mystical pool of slippery warm liquid, where they emerged gasping moments later, fully healed of all wounds and marks. The group fled upstairs and returned to the Rusty Lantern tavern, with nothing but war stories to show for their efforts.
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