Hero Trap!
May. 15th, 2005 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
terryclothWe had a session of Tom's D+D game. Ed wasn't there, but there were still four of us to play.
It would take a couple weeks before everything the party wanted done in town after the last adventure could be completed, so before Raiina's bow was finished they decided to track down one of the leads they'd heard in the meantime.
Rhiannon had heard word of Erethrax the necromancer, who was rumored to help adventurers and seemed to be connected to the symbol on her mace (which an evil person had referred to as 'the key', and further examination in town had suggested that that was likely meant literally, judging from the pattern of spikes on it), was living, or had been living, in Night Falls, only two days travel to the east. Since the plan was just to go and talk to people in town and maybe to the necromancer himself if he was still alive, it'd be okay to head off without Raiina's bow -- if worst came to worst she had her backup longsword, anyway.
They got to the town without incident, to find a very strange sight -- apparently, the town's main industry was funerary services -- they had nine different graveyards and a huge gravedigges' guildhall dominating the town. Strangely, for a town that dealt so much with death, there were no temples, but the guildhall was the obvious place to look for records and ask about Erethrax, so that's where they headed first.
The desk clerk told them that he'd never heard of Erethrax -- which the party thought was strange, since he'd supposedly been famous all the way out to Wheloon. Even stranger, at the mention of his name several of the clerks in back reacted by immediately running off to do... something... They were told that the records could be searched, but it would take a couple days, and in the meantime of course they could stay in one of the many local inns.
That night, around suppertime, there was a commotion outside. A young gravedigger was screaming that the great tomb at Stone Hall had been opened. Oh no! "That's impossible," said the local guildmaster, "No one would be foolish enough to open that tomb, due to the grave consequences that would befall the entire region if the door was still left open when the sun rose. Go home and stop telling your silly stories!"
"Well, maybe we should check it out, at least," Rhiannon said -- and the guildmaster agreed. "Yes! Brave adventurers are just what we need to look into this. Here, have these expensive potions to protect you from the undead!"
So they went off to the graveyard. "Oh, by the way, be sure to watch out for the cemetary golems, that attack anyone who wanders in after dark." Er... yeah.
Forwarned was forearmed, however -- the main attack the golems used was a deafening screech, and a silence spell rendered that useless, so the party (read: Morgan) was able to smash the golems that got in their way to bits as they made their way to the main crypt. In the first room were scary-looking dog statues that created skeletal wolves to attack the party -- not much of a threat, but there seemed to be no end to them, and eventually the party was forced to retreat farther in and lock the doors behind them to keep the wolves from following (the doors wouldn't otherwise stay closed).
The next room was full of corpses... some of them very, very recent -- as in the blood was still warm -- but others only slightly older. It wasn't plausible that this tomb had truly only been opened just this night -- obviously, someone was dumping bodies here instead of putting them in proper graves. Morgan and Zanzibar began to doubt the story they'd been sent here on. "Are you sure this isn't a trap? I mean, it's all very convenient, and here we are locked in the crypt with gods know what undead..."
"Don't be so paranoid," Rhiannon said, "We should probably drink that anti-undead potion before we move any further in." So they all did.
After that was the second seal, a block puzzle. They'd been given explicit instructions as to how to repair the seal, if it was broken, but a quick INT check revealed that those instructions were clearly wrong. Rhiannon figured out the correct pattern, and while Morgan (really really strong while expanded by his psionic powers) started to arrange them, the rest of the party checked out some of the side rooms.
One of them was full of scraps of paper, talking about various administrative things and/or necromantic rituals. Raiina found a scrap that told the *true* way to break the seal on the tomb -- at least two 'heroes' had to breathe their last breath inside the crypt.
Oops.
It was about then that the sleep poison they'd drank kicked in... although fortunately, only Rhiannon actually succumbed, or the adventure would have ended there, as the wraith who'd been watching them all along chose that moment to attack!
The party had a lot of trouble getting their weapons to affect the wraith -- who, it seemed from what they'd heard previously, was likely what was left of Erethrax after a failed attempt at lichdom. They decided that since the mission they were on was bullshit, the best thing to do would be to flee the crypt so that they at least wouldn't die inside it. Besides, maybe the wraith was truly bound to it still, and wouldn't be able to follow?
They were delayed for a while in the central chamber with all the bodies, though -- Raiina had to pick the locks she'd picked shut on the way in so that they could get out, and the wraith called on a black ooze to come out and menace the party further, while healing what damage they managed to do to it by draining most of Raiina and Rhiannon's health, to the point where one more strike might have finished either off.
But Zanzibar used the second (and last) fireball from his staff to take out the black ooze (which had split several times, leaving it vulnerable), and enough lucky shots landed on the wraith at the same time to destroy him. That left only the dogs from the front room as enemies to face, and they... couldn't leave the front room.
So, after exploring the rest of the tomb and looting it thoroughly (Rhiannon had told them earlier that they were only allowed to loot the graves of those who'd already risen as evil undead, and Erethrax certainly qualified) they decided to spend the night there rather than risk the still weakened Raiina and Rhiannon against the golems guarding the graveyard.
last session | next session
The game next week is cancelled (this game was supposed to happen last week but was delayed) so that Tom will have two weeks to get his house ready to show to prospective clients. Pretty soon we'll have to find somewhere else to play... one way or another. He can't afford to live there much longer.
Eric seems to be getting worse and worse without Dave there. I'm not sure why Dave of all people would be a moderating influence, but ever since he left Eric's been getting more and more... extreme. Or maybe it's since he quit his job?
He was really going crazy today, even though I wasn't arguing with him -- he was yelling at Tom, at Michelle, even with his brother Josh! I mean, it wasn't actually scary or anything, it's far from as bad as all that, but it's worrying that it's getting worse at all.
It would take a couple weeks before everything the party wanted done in town after the last adventure could be completed, so before Raiina's bow was finished they decided to track down one of the leads they'd heard in the meantime.
Rhiannon had heard word of Erethrax the necromancer, who was rumored to help adventurers and seemed to be connected to the symbol on her mace (which an evil person had referred to as 'the key', and further examination in town had suggested that that was likely meant literally, judging from the pattern of spikes on it), was living, or had been living, in Night Falls, only two days travel to the east. Since the plan was just to go and talk to people in town and maybe to the necromancer himself if he was still alive, it'd be okay to head off without Raiina's bow -- if worst came to worst she had her backup longsword, anyway.
They got to the town without incident, to find a very strange sight -- apparently, the town's main industry was funerary services -- they had nine different graveyards and a huge gravedigges' guildhall dominating the town. Strangely, for a town that dealt so much with death, there were no temples, but the guildhall was the obvious place to look for records and ask about Erethrax, so that's where they headed first.
The desk clerk told them that he'd never heard of Erethrax -- which the party thought was strange, since he'd supposedly been famous all the way out to Wheloon. Even stranger, at the mention of his name several of the clerks in back reacted by immediately running off to do... something... They were told that the records could be searched, but it would take a couple days, and in the meantime of course they could stay in one of the many local inns.
That night, around suppertime, there was a commotion outside. A young gravedigger was screaming that the great tomb at Stone Hall had been opened. Oh no! "That's impossible," said the local guildmaster, "No one would be foolish enough to open that tomb, due to the grave consequences that would befall the entire region if the door was still left open when the sun rose. Go home and stop telling your silly stories!"
"Well, maybe we should check it out, at least," Rhiannon said -- and the guildmaster agreed. "Yes! Brave adventurers are just what we need to look into this. Here, have these expensive potions to protect you from the undead!"
So they went off to the graveyard. "Oh, by the way, be sure to watch out for the cemetary golems, that attack anyone who wanders in after dark." Er... yeah.
Forwarned was forearmed, however -- the main attack the golems used was a deafening screech, and a silence spell rendered that useless, so the party (read: Morgan) was able to smash the golems that got in their way to bits as they made their way to the main crypt. In the first room were scary-looking dog statues that created skeletal wolves to attack the party -- not much of a threat, but there seemed to be no end to them, and eventually the party was forced to retreat farther in and lock the doors behind them to keep the wolves from following (the doors wouldn't otherwise stay closed).
The next room was full of corpses... some of them very, very recent -- as in the blood was still warm -- but others only slightly older. It wasn't plausible that this tomb had truly only been opened just this night -- obviously, someone was dumping bodies here instead of putting them in proper graves. Morgan and Zanzibar began to doubt the story they'd been sent here on. "Are you sure this isn't a trap? I mean, it's all very convenient, and here we are locked in the crypt with gods know what undead..."
"Don't be so paranoid," Rhiannon said, "We should probably drink that anti-undead potion before we move any further in." So they all did.
After that was the second seal, a block puzzle. They'd been given explicit instructions as to how to repair the seal, if it was broken, but a quick INT check revealed that those instructions were clearly wrong. Rhiannon figured out the correct pattern, and while Morgan (really really strong while expanded by his psionic powers) started to arrange them, the rest of the party checked out some of the side rooms.
One of them was full of scraps of paper, talking about various administrative things and/or necromantic rituals. Raiina found a scrap that told the *true* way to break the seal on the tomb -- at least two 'heroes' had to breathe their last breath inside the crypt.
Oops.
It was about then that the sleep poison they'd drank kicked in... although fortunately, only Rhiannon actually succumbed, or the adventure would have ended there, as the wraith who'd been watching them all along chose that moment to attack!
The party had a lot of trouble getting their weapons to affect the wraith -- who, it seemed from what they'd heard previously, was likely what was left of Erethrax after a failed attempt at lichdom. They decided that since the mission they were on was bullshit, the best thing to do would be to flee the crypt so that they at least wouldn't die inside it. Besides, maybe the wraith was truly bound to it still, and wouldn't be able to follow?
They were delayed for a while in the central chamber with all the bodies, though -- Raiina had to pick the locks she'd picked shut on the way in so that they could get out, and the wraith called on a black ooze to come out and menace the party further, while healing what damage they managed to do to it by draining most of Raiina and Rhiannon's health, to the point where one more strike might have finished either off.
But Zanzibar used the second (and last) fireball from his staff to take out the black ooze (which had split several times, leaving it vulnerable), and enough lucky shots landed on the wraith at the same time to destroy him. That left only the dogs from the front room as enemies to face, and they... couldn't leave the front room.
So, after exploring the rest of the tomb and looting it thoroughly (Rhiannon had told them earlier that they were only allowed to loot the graves of those who'd already risen as evil undead, and Erethrax certainly qualified) they decided to spend the night there rather than risk the still weakened Raiina and Rhiannon against the golems guarding the graveyard.
last session | next session
The game next week is cancelled (this game was supposed to happen last week but was delayed) so that Tom will have two weeks to get his house ready to show to prospective clients. Pretty soon we'll have to find somewhere else to play... one way or another. He can't afford to live there much longer.
Eric seems to be getting worse and worse without Dave there. I'm not sure why Dave of all people would be a moderating influence, but ever since he left Eric's been getting more and more... extreme. Or maybe it's since he quit his job?
He was really going crazy today, even though I wasn't arguing with him -- he was yelling at Tom, at Michelle, even with his brother Josh! I mean, it wasn't actually scary or anything, it's far from as bad as all that, but it's worrying that it's getting worse at all.
