Short in and out Dungeon Crawl
Jul. 30th, 2003 12:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothTonight was my Tuesday D+D game. This week, Luis was actually present, visiting, which meant that Abbey was extremely active and talkative. My god, he never shut up. It also meant that we could see his dice, which somehow made them roll many fewer 19s and 20s.
So, the party decided to go talk to the Temple of Lantham, to see if it could get them the Rods of Cancellation they needed to get through the Prismatic Sphere and into the Shimmering Isles.
Abbey tried to vamp the priests on the front steps of the temple, and after one admirer tried to break into the vault to impress her, she was arrested and brought to the dungeons. It was quickly established that she had not, in fact, asked him to commit a crime, and a black-robed priest saw that she was released, but asked her to bring 'her friends, or... employer' (since she'd professed to being in someone's employ, rather than confess to being wealthy in her own right) to a meeting the next day.
The next day they met, and the party was hired to escort an agent of the Black Tower of the Church of Lantham to the Well of Souls, located in a recently uncovered former dwarven city, to ask it about the mysterious elven ship that had appeared at the city of Lantham's deserted docks a few days previous. They were hiring the party because there weren't many adventurers not affiliated with the church, since the fall of Phasia, and they didn't want to involve the rest of the church in this matter (since most of the church would object to raiding the tombs of Lantham's greatest heroes, no matter what the cause).
They'd expected the party to care who had assaulted them, but were also willing to offer a discount on magic items, including the Rods of Cancellation the party was looking for. May tried to insist that the party receive the rods in payment, but the priest weren't really willing to pay 20,000gp for a few day's services by adventurers they didn't *entirely* trust.
Eventually the party agreed. They were joined by Damian, the evil-looking, goateed priest they'd be escorting, and after secretly getting a message to the wizards to wait for them, were whisked off by flying carpet to the entrance to the dwarven city.
On the way to the Well of Souls, they ran into four suspicious looking folk who decided not to attack them yet. Most of the area had already been cleared by other adventurers and previous church expeditions, though, and they met no one else.
Since the expedition they were following up on had died from traps, Abbey was in front searching for the same. She quickly located a pit trap, but accidentally set it off trying to disarm it, although she didn't fall in. A few more tries later, she finally fixed it so it wouldn't trigger, and proceeded down the corridor, searching for traps as she went.
Past the pit trap was a room that filled with water, which took forever for Abbey to disarm in such a way as to allow the party to actually proceed -- she wedged one of the doors open, which didn't stop the water from flowing, but stopped it from drowning anyone... or triggering the 'I'm done filling the room now' pressure sensors which would allow the far door to open. Eventually, after many false tries and a few torrents of water washing the party back down the tunnel a ways, Abbey managed to wedge the 'don't fire the trap, not everyone's in the room yet' pressure plate in place, which stopped the trap from ever firing, and everyone piled in and closed the entry door, allowing the exit door to be opened.
The next hallway's traps weren't even concealed. Abbey played around with trying to disarm them, and got herself filled full of poisoned darts. She lived, though, and the trap was bypassed by May casting 'Fly' on everyone.
So, there were three doorways out of the poison dart hallway. Through the first was a chamber with a secret door, where a blue glowing gem was guarded by three wraiths. Through the second was a chamber with a tunnel leading down to the bottom of the water room's drain, where a green glowing gem was guarded by a pair of Umber Hulks, who also fed on anyone falling down the pit.
The last door led to a room with obviously animated statues, with glowing red eyes. Abbey touched one of the statues, and they animated and attacked! May took out half with a fireball, although he nearly took out Conner as well, and the rest were fought in melee until Conner and Abbey were both near death. Once they fled, Damian moved to block the doorway and hold the animated suits of armor in place, and May fireballed them again and killed the rest.
The glowing red eyes were reassembled into the third gem, and using markings that had been hidden under a layer of dust until the fireballs blew the dust away, the three gems were set in the correct position on three pedestals, allowing the admantium doors to the Tombs of the Heroes to be opened.
A warning engraved on the floor, under the murals of the heroes' great deeds, said not to open the heroes graves if you wanted to live, and the party listened, and instead proceeded directly to the Well of Souls.
May stepped into the well first, asking 'How do I get home?' The well gave him specifications for a tuning fork for use with a Plane Shift spell -- it required an iron fork forged on his home plane, or one carved from a dragon's tooth. An adult red dragon's tooth.
Damian also stepped inside, but was unsatisfied with his answer. He declared that he'd have to report back to his superiors, check on the informations that he'd been told, and then come back to ask more questions. He started gathering up the glowing gems so that he'd be able to come back later, but May snatched the red gem and refused to hand it over, insisting that it was 'treasure' and that the party had the right to all treasure found in the tomb, as per their agreement.
Damian insisted that the gems were 'keys' and not 'treasure', but said that his superior would make the final judgment, and he was willing to let the matter go for the moment if the party would wedge the doors open with spikes, so that he *might* be able to come back even without the gems.
This was done, and after talking Abbey out of re-arming all the traps ("What part of 'I'll need to come back here later' do you not understand?") the party headed back to the surface.
On the way, they were attacked by the four men they'd seen on the way in, who were lying in wait -- attacking with bows from out of range of the party's light sources, without light of their own.
"Oh ho ho!" thought Abbey, who didn't have a light source and was well away from the party. She ran towards the men who lurked in the dark, planning to sneak-attack them while they couldn't see her. Conner flew up next to her, though, illuminating her nicely so that he enemies could attack them both. Damian stumbled towards the combat, slow in his full plate and not able to make himself fly like Conner could.
May teleported back to the Well of Souls and pulled out all the spikes, then teleported to Lantham to talk to the wizards again, then teleported to the Isle of the Gods. Without telling anyone else what he was planning.
So Abbey and Conner decided, somehow, that May must have ran back to the Tomb, and dragged Damian there. The tomb was still empty, but Conner would be able to teleport into and out of the vault once to see if May was inside. He (lied and) told Damian that he wouldn't be able to take both him and Abbey with him, then took Abbey while Damian protested. May was not inside the vault, although the spikes that he'd pulled out were, and they'd obviously been pulled out physically.
But by the time it took to figure that out and teleport back, Damian had already been very stupid. Convinced the party had betrayed him, he put the two gems he did have on their pedestals and touched the admantium door... summoning a pair of fire elementals to attack him. Abbey and Conner arrived in time to help fight off the flaming creatures, and back to Lantham they went.
Abbey insisted that they'd fulfilled their contract, but the Black Tower was not satisfied. They told Abbey that they'd sell the party the rods once they got the red gem back, which would mean that the path was clear. Abbey and Conner were indignant -- they'd been hired to escort, they said, not to 'open a path', and had the right to all treasure, including the two gems that Damian had in his possession.
Eventually, Abbey convinced them to sell them one of the rods if they'd promise to get the red gem and return it, at which point the other rod would be sold. Conner built a holy water font, and scried May's location, then teleported himself and Abbey to him.
May was completely against turning in the red gem -- he didn't trust the Temple at all, and trusted the Black Tower even less. But he had to admit that the tuning fork they needed would be difficult to construct, so he was willing to compromise. The party and the Black Tower eventually negotiated a compromise -- they GAVE the party the second Rod of Cancellation in return for the red gem, which intrinsically was worth about the same amount (and as a key was worth much more).
May tried to get the Black Tower to promise not to use the Well of Souls to harm any innocents, but the priests were unwilling to take that oath.
They also offered the party another opportunity to work with them, investigating the source of the strange elven boat in Chirinide, as directed by Damian's question to the Well of Souls, but the party declined.
Instead, they gathered the three remaining wizards (one had decided to remain in Lantham, where it was safe) and teleported back to the bathysphere, flew it back down to the Prismatic Sphere, and used the rod of cancellation... which opened a 20-foot wide hole, not nearly wide enough for the bathysphere.
So it was under normal fly spells that he party entered the Shimmering Isles. It was immediately apparent that all was not well -- the main city was in ruins, and the outlying islands were populated by lizardmen and primitive farmers, who ran from the party in terror, shouting about the prophecy and the end of the world!
After asking a few basic questions, and learning that the mages they'd come here for had left the plane a thousand years ago, the party decided to head for the mainland and stir up trouble... which they did. Just walking down the street near the docks attracted a trio of Barbezous, who 'suggested' the party surrender and join them for dinner... but only May was fooled. Abbey and Conner stabbed and smote the devils, and soon they were dead.
Next, to open the silent generic house, and see what lay inside?
last week next session
No one knew what the hell Ed was up to having May teleport away in the middle of the battle. It turned out he was really paranoid about the Black Tower getting its hands on the Well of Soul on a recurring basis. With good reason. Nya ha ha.
So, the party decided to go talk to the Temple of Lantham, to see if it could get them the Rods of Cancellation they needed to get through the Prismatic Sphere and into the Shimmering Isles.
Abbey tried to vamp the priests on the front steps of the temple, and after one admirer tried to break into the vault to impress her, she was arrested and brought to the dungeons. It was quickly established that she had not, in fact, asked him to commit a crime, and a black-robed priest saw that she was released, but asked her to bring 'her friends, or... employer' (since she'd professed to being in someone's employ, rather than confess to being wealthy in her own right) to a meeting the next day.
The next day they met, and the party was hired to escort an agent of the Black Tower of the Church of Lantham to the Well of Souls, located in a recently uncovered former dwarven city, to ask it about the mysterious elven ship that had appeared at the city of Lantham's deserted docks a few days previous. They were hiring the party because there weren't many adventurers not affiliated with the church, since the fall of Phasia, and they didn't want to involve the rest of the church in this matter (since most of the church would object to raiding the tombs of Lantham's greatest heroes, no matter what the cause).
They'd expected the party to care who had assaulted them, but were also willing to offer a discount on magic items, including the Rods of Cancellation the party was looking for. May tried to insist that the party receive the rods in payment, but the priest weren't really willing to pay 20,000gp for a few day's services by adventurers they didn't *entirely* trust.
Eventually the party agreed. They were joined by Damian, the evil-looking, goateed priest they'd be escorting, and after secretly getting a message to the wizards to wait for them, were whisked off by flying carpet to the entrance to the dwarven city.
On the way to the Well of Souls, they ran into four suspicious looking folk who decided not to attack them yet. Most of the area had already been cleared by other adventurers and previous church expeditions, though, and they met no one else.
Since the expedition they were following up on had died from traps, Abbey was in front searching for the same. She quickly located a pit trap, but accidentally set it off trying to disarm it, although she didn't fall in. A few more tries later, she finally fixed it so it wouldn't trigger, and proceeded down the corridor, searching for traps as she went.
Past the pit trap was a room that filled with water, which took forever for Abbey to disarm in such a way as to allow the party to actually proceed -- she wedged one of the doors open, which didn't stop the water from flowing, but stopped it from drowning anyone... or triggering the 'I'm done filling the room now' pressure sensors which would allow the far door to open. Eventually, after many false tries and a few torrents of water washing the party back down the tunnel a ways, Abbey managed to wedge the 'don't fire the trap, not everyone's in the room yet' pressure plate in place, which stopped the trap from ever firing, and everyone piled in and closed the entry door, allowing the exit door to be opened.
The next hallway's traps weren't even concealed. Abbey played around with trying to disarm them, and got herself filled full of poisoned darts. She lived, though, and the trap was bypassed by May casting 'Fly' on everyone.
So, there were three doorways out of the poison dart hallway. Through the first was a chamber with a secret door, where a blue glowing gem was guarded by three wraiths. Through the second was a chamber with a tunnel leading down to the bottom of the water room's drain, where a green glowing gem was guarded by a pair of Umber Hulks, who also fed on anyone falling down the pit.
The last door led to a room with obviously animated statues, with glowing red eyes. Abbey touched one of the statues, and they animated and attacked! May took out half with a fireball, although he nearly took out Conner as well, and the rest were fought in melee until Conner and Abbey were both near death. Once they fled, Damian moved to block the doorway and hold the animated suits of armor in place, and May fireballed them again and killed the rest.
The glowing red eyes were reassembled into the third gem, and using markings that had been hidden under a layer of dust until the fireballs blew the dust away, the three gems were set in the correct position on three pedestals, allowing the admantium doors to the Tombs of the Heroes to be opened.
A warning engraved on the floor, under the murals of the heroes' great deeds, said not to open the heroes graves if you wanted to live, and the party listened, and instead proceeded directly to the Well of Souls.
May stepped into the well first, asking 'How do I get home?' The well gave him specifications for a tuning fork for use with a Plane Shift spell -- it required an iron fork forged on his home plane, or one carved from a dragon's tooth. An adult red dragon's tooth.
Damian also stepped inside, but was unsatisfied with his answer. He declared that he'd have to report back to his superiors, check on the informations that he'd been told, and then come back to ask more questions. He started gathering up the glowing gems so that he'd be able to come back later, but May snatched the red gem and refused to hand it over, insisting that it was 'treasure' and that the party had the right to all treasure found in the tomb, as per their agreement.
Damian insisted that the gems were 'keys' and not 'treasure', but said that his superior would make the final judgment, and he was willing to let the matter go for the moment if the party would wedge the doors open with spikes, so that he *might* be able to come back even without the gems.
This was done, and after talking Abbey out of re-arming all the traps ("What part of 'I'll need to come back here later' do you not understand?") the party headed back to the surface.
On the way, they were attacked by the four men they'd seen on the way in, who were lying in wait -- attacking with bows from out of range of the party's light sources, without light of their own.
"Oh ho ho!" thought Abbey, who didn't have a light source and was well away from the party. She ran towards the men who lurked in the dark, planning to sneak-attack them while they couldn't see her. Conner flew up next to her, though, illuminating her nicely so that he enemies could attack them both. Damian stumbled towards the combat, slow in his full plate and not able to make himself fly like Conner could.
May teleported back to the Well of Souls and pulled out all the spikes, then teleported to Lantham to talk to the wizards again, then teleported to the Isle of the Gods. Without telling anyone else what he was planning.
So Abbey and Conner decided, somehow, that May must have ran back to the Tomb, and dragged Damian there. The tomb was still empty, but Conner would be able to teleport into and out of the vault once to see if May was inside. He (lied and) told Damian that he wouldn't be able to take both him and Abbey with him, then took Abbey while Damian protested. May was not inside the vault, although the spikes that he'd pulled out were, and they'd obviously been pulled out physically.
But by the time it took to figure that out and teleport back, Damian had already been very stupid. Convinced the party had betrayed him, he put the two gems he did have on their pedestals and touched the admantium door... summoning a pair of fire elementals to attack him. Abbey and Conner arrived in time to help fight off the flaming creatures, and back to Lantham they went.
Abbey insisted that they'd fulfilled their contract, but the Black Tower was not satisfied. They told Abbey that they'd sell the party the rods once they got the red gem back, which would mean that the path was clear. Abbey and Conner were indignant -- they'd been hired to escort, they said, not to 'open a path', and had the right to all treasure, including the two gems that Damian had in his possession.
Eventually, Abbey convinced them to sell them one of the rods if they'd promise to get the red gem and return it, at which point the other rod would be sold. Conner built a holy water font, and scried May's location, then teleported himself and Abbey to him.
May was completely against turning in the red gem -- he didn't trust the Temple at all, and trusted the Black Tower even less. But he had to admit that the tuning fork they needed would be difficult to construct, so he was willing to compromise. The party and the Black Tower eventually negotiated a compromise -- they GAVE the party the second Rod of Cancellation in return for the red gem, which intrinsically was worth about the same amount (and as a key was worth much more).
May tried to get the Black Tower to promise not to use the Well of Souls to harm any innocents, but the priests were unwilling to take that oath.
They also offered the party another opportunity to work with them, investigating the source of the strange elven boat in Chirinide, as directed by Damian's question to the Well of Souls, but the party declined.
Instead, they gathered the three remaining wizards (one had decided to remain in Lantham, where it was safe) and teleported back to the bathysphere, flew it back down to the Prismatic Sphere, and used the rod of cancellation... which opened a 20-foot wide hole, not nearly wide enough for the bathysphere.
So it was under normal fly spells that he party entered the Shimmering Isles. It was immediately apparent that all was not well -- the main city was in ruins, and the outlying islands were populated by lizardmen and primitive farmers, who ran from the party in terror, shouting about the prophecy and the end of the world!
After asking a few basic questions, and learning that the mages they'd come here for had left the plane a thousand years ago, the party decided to head for the mainland and stir up trouble... which they did. Just walking down the street near the docks attracted a trio of Barbezous, who 'suggested' the party surrender and join them for dinner... but only May was fooled. Abbey and Conner stabbed and smote the devils, and soon they were dead.
Next, to open the silent generic house, and see what lay inside?
last week next session
No one knew what the hell Ed was up to having May teleport away in the middle of the battle. It turned out he was really paranoid about the Black Tower getting its hands on the Well of Soul on a recurring basis. With good reason. Nya ha ha.
