Session 46 happened Tuesday, September 27, 2011.
This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training. I heartily recommend Dyson's Delve as a beginning adventure.
Adventuring Group:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)
Later, July 29, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, who shows us the way, even when we are weary.
After our short rest [not enough to level yet], we resumed our search of the pyramid. Elspeth finished a sweep of the hallway ring we were in and found no other traps. Once we were certain it was safe to move around, Elspeth and Frankie started searching for hidden passages while Midnight used detect magic to check for illusionary walls. A single concealed alcove was found. It contained a lever in the back wall.
Elspeth searched the alcove and declared it free of traps, which left the lever itself. After some discussion and with no other options, Macha pulled the lever while the rest of us remained alert.
We heard the sound of stone grinding on stone in two places. The one we could see immediately was the entrance to the hallway ring. The floor of the pit hidden by illusions rose, blocking off our only known route of escape. A similar noise came from the back hallway area, an area we could not see directly. With great caution, we started searching for a new way to either proceed or escape.
What we found was another pit concealed by illusion. Similar to the route we descended, this was protected by a scorching ray trap, which Estrela found the by flying through as a bat. While I healed her, Elspeth set to deactivating the trap. Frankie investigated ahead by running up the side of the pit to the next level above. He reported it safe and Elspeth followed him up. They reported the level above seemed to be the same hallway ring that encircled the chamber of the giant undead hands. They could even follow our original foot prints. Needless to say, we found this odd and it made us wary.
Looking for the secret door back into the chamber of giant undead hands, we found it had seemingly moved clock-wise forward one segment of the circular hallway. [NOTE: Harkaitz wouldn’t say “clock-wise” here as there are no clocks, but for the ease of reading, that’s what I’m putting.] The chamber in the center was the chamber of undead giant hands and they still lay there where we had destroyed them. But the handholds carved in the wall up to the entrance level were missing. Luckily, the stone coffin that formed the cover to the entrance was still aside and we could see up into the chamber above, the false crypt chamber. Estrela flew up (still in bat form) and confirmed the false crypt chamber was there, but the secret door we used to enter was gone.
We used knotted ropes and a grappling hook to ascend to the false crypt chamber. Searching for a hidden passage out, we found two instead of the single one we were expecting. Opening one, instead of the hallway we were expecting, we found a completely new passage, which turned out to be another hallway circle, this one only five feet wide. Elspeth and Frankie scouted ahead, going to the left first. At the end of this passage, approximately where the entry passage to the pyramid should have been was a small chamber, about 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep. Elspeth found a trap at the entry to the small chamber and disabled it. Inside the chamber they could see a chest against the left (inner) wall. Elspeth and Frankie returned to the false crypt chamber to report what they had found before going back to check the chest.
With Frankie in the hallway, Elspeth checked the chest for traps. She found a fireball trap on the chest, but missed one set to trigger when she opened the chest. This one dropped two walls – one from the ceiling at the entrance to seal the entry and one down into the floor at what was the back wall, exposing a 10 foot wide and five foot deep area holding two animated statues! Four of these things nearly killed our entire group back in the Delve and here Elspeth had to face two all alone.
Elspeth immediately called for help and them moved into a corner and took a defensive stance. She hoped to avoid being hit too much before the rest of us could arrive. Frankie called back down the hallway for help and then moved to the newly dropped stone way, hammering it with fists hardened to the consistency of adamantine. As we moved up to provide assistance, Frankie unleashed a flurry of blows and shattered the stone wall. Even during this short time, the animated statues had hit Elspeth several times and she was heavily bloodied.
Frankie went after the statues, knocking chunks of stone off them each time he hit, and he hit often. Once the statues were rubble, Midnight and I pooled healing capabilities to heal Elspeth’s bones and flesh from the beating she had taken.
Inside the chest we found a stone head. It looked like part of a statue, but there was no evidence it had been broken off. It detected as faintly magical and Tre-ba identified the magical residue as “door opening magic”. Aziz packed it away in a bag of holding. Frankie believed the chest should contain more than just a stone head and took it apart looking for a hidden compartment. There was none.
Having reached a dead end at this point, we reversed course and followed the passage back to the right of the secret door. This passage led to a large chamber before continuing on past it. The chamber was tall and lined with statues of paladins in the service of Ra. The back end of the room narrowed down to an immense set of stone doors. Standing in front of said doors was a larger than life-sized statue of a man in armor, likely another paladin. It was missing its head and its hands rested where a sword hilt would have been if the sword were not also missing.
It was very apparent that the stone head we found would fit on the top of the statue, so now we had to find the missing sword. Clearly it would be down the remaining passage, so Elspeth and Frankie proceeded that way while the rest of us waited in this chamber. Apparently Elspeth found a trap in the far corner of the passage and accidentally triggered it while attempting to disarm it. We discovered this when we heard the sound of walls slamming down, isolating the part of the passage they were in. However, by the time we got there, Frankie had already punched his way through the wall between us, spilling out the poison gas that had filled the area he and Elspeth were in.
Once the gas dissipated, Frankie knocked out the back wall of the trap and he and Elspeth entered into a small chamber that was a mirror of the chamber where we found the stone head. This time Elspeth defeated all of the traps in the chamber and on the chest, revealing a stone scimitar in the chest. Aziz and Macha have carried it back to the statue chamber and we are about ready to reattach the head and the sword to the guardian statue. Aziz and I will place the pieces as this will hopefully allow us passage and open the doors to the next chamber without a fight. We’ll see.
*End of Session*
This campaign used the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game as a starting point, but has now moved on to new material from the DM-in-training. I heartily recommend Dyson's Delve as a beginning adventure.
Adventuring Group:
Tre-ba Bel a sheer (female elf alchemist)
Elspeth (female half-elf rogue)
Frankie Hu, Master of the Distracting Fist (male dwarf monk)
Harkaitz of the Red Soul (male human cleric of Ra)
NPCs:
Aziz of the Light (male human paladin, cohort of Harkaitz)
Sarisvati the Sun-touched (female Ifrit oracle, cohort of Aziz)
Midnight (female half-elf witch, cohort of Frankie Hu)
Macha (female human fighter, cohort of Elspeth)
Estrela (female Aasimar druid, cohort of Tre-Ba)
Short John Copper (male halfling expert, hireling)
The Red Keffiyehs (human warriors, followers of Harkaitz)
Carnish (male gnoll spellcaster of some sort)
Professor Walsh (male human expert)
Later, July 29, Year of the Earth Rabbit
Praise Ra, who shows us the way, even when we are weary.
After our short rest [not enough to level yet], we resumed our search of the pyramid. Elspeth finished a sweep of the hallway ring we were in and found no other traps. Once we were certain it was safe to move around, Elspeth and Frankie started searching for hidden passages while Midnight used detect magic to check for illusionary walls. A single concealed alcove was found. It contained a lever in the back wall.
Elspeth searched the alcove and declared it free of traps, which left the lever itself. After some discussion and with no other options, Macha pulled the lever while the rest of us remained alert.
We heard the sound of stone grinding on stone in two places. The one we could see immediately was the entrance to the hallway ring. The floor of the pit hidden by illusions rose, blocking off our only known route of escape. A similar noise came from the back hallway area, an area we could not see directly. With great caution, we started searching for a new way to either proceed or escape.
What we found was another pit concealed by illusion. Similar to the route we descended, this was protected by a scorching ray trap, which Estrela found the by flying through as a bat. While I healed her, Elspeth set to deactivating the trap. Frankie investigated ahead by running up the side of the pit to the next level above. He reported it safe and Elspeth followed him up. They reported the level above seemed to be the same hallway ring that encircled the chamber of the giant undead hands. They could even follow our original foot prints. Needless to say, we found this odd and it made us wary.
Looking for the secret door back into the chamber of giant undead hands, we found it had seemingly moved clock-wise forward one segment of the circular hallway. [NOTE: Harkaitz wouldn’t say “clock-wise” here as there are no clocks, but for the ease of reading, that’s what I’m putting.] The chamber in the center was the chamber of undead giant hands and they still lay there where we had destroyed them. But the handholds carved in the wall up to the entrance level were missing. Luckily, the stone coffin that formed the cover to the entrance was still aside and we could see up into the chamber above, the false crypt chamber. Estrela flew up (still in bat form) and confirmed the false crypt chamber was there, but the secret door we used to enter was gone.
We used knotted ropes and a grappling hook to ascend to the false crypt chamber. Searching for a hidden passage out, we found two instead of the single one we were expecting. Opening one, instead of the hallway we were expecting, we found a completely new passage, which turned out to be another hallway circle, this one only five feet wide. Elspeth and Frankie scouted ahead, going to the left first. At the end of this passage, approximately where the entry passage to the pyramid should have been was a small chamber, about 10 feet wide by 15 feet deep. Elspeth found a trap at the entry to the small chamber and disabled it. Inside the chamber they could see a chest against the left (inner) wall. Elspeth and Frankie returned to the false crypt chamber to report what they had found before going back to check the chest.
With Frankie in the hallway, Elspeth checked the chest for traps. She found a fireball trap on the chest, but missed one set to trigger when she opened the chest. This one dropped two walls – one from the ceiling at the entrance to seal the entry and one down into the floor at what was the back wall, exposing a 10 foot wide and five foot deep area holding two animated statues! Four of these things nearly killed our entire group back in the Delve and here Elspeth had to face two all alone.
Elspeth immediately called for help and them moved into a corner and took a defensive stance. She hoped to avoid being hit too much before the rest of us could arrive. Frankie called back down the hallway for help and then moved to the newly dropped stone way, hammering it with fists hardened to the consistency of adamantine. As we moved up to provide assistance, Frankie unleashed a flurry of blows and shattered the stone wall. Even during this short time, the animated statues had hit Elspeth several times and she was heavily bloodied.
Frankie went after the statues, knocking chunks of stone off them each time he hit, and he hit often. Once the statues were rubble, Midnight and I pooled healing capabilities to heal Elspeth’s bones and flesh from the beating she had taken.
Inside the chest we found a stone head. It looked like part of a statue, but there was no evidence it had been broken off. It detected as faintly magical and Tre-ba identified the magical residue as “door opening magic”. Aziz packed it away in a bag of holding. Frankie believed the chest should contain more than just a stone head and took it apart looking for a hidden compartment. There was none.
Having reached a dead end at this point, we reversed course and followed the passage back to the right of the secret door. This passage led to a large chamber before continuing on past it. The chamber was tall and lined with statues of paladins in the service of Ra. The back end of the room narrowed down to an immense set of stone doors. Standing in front of said doors was a larger than life-sized statue of a man in armor, likely another paladin. It was missing its head and its hands rested where a sword hilt would have been if the sword were not also missing.
It was very apparent that the stone head we found would fit on the top of the statue, so now we had to find the missing sword. Clearly it would be down the remaining passage, so Elspeth and Frankie proceeded that way while the rest of us waited in this chamber. Apparently Elspeth found a trap in the far corner of the passage and accidentally triggered it while attempting to disarm it. We discovered this when we heard the sound of walls slamming down, isolating the part of the passage they were in. However, by the time we got there, Frankie had already punched his way through the wall between us, spilling out the poison gas that had filled the area he and Elspeth were in.
Once the gas dissipated, Frankie knocked out the back wall of the trap and he and Elspeth entered into a small chamber that was a mirror of the chamber where we found the stone head. This time Elspeth defeated all of the traps in the chamber and on the chest, revealing a stone scimitar in the chest. Aziz and Macha have carried it back to the statue chamber and we are about ready to reattach the head and the sword to the guardian statue. Aziz and I will place the pieces as this will hopefully allow us passage and open the doors to the next chamber without a fight. We’ll see.
*End of Session*
No comments:
Post a Comment