Session Report – Barrowmaze – Session 15

[The Revengers return to the barrows to find Dr. West and end up burying the hatchet with the Norse Whisperers.]

[Also?  SPOILERS!  This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]

PCs (The Revengers)
Quillian – male human Theurgist (3rd level Mage)
Godric – male Dwarven Craft-Catechist (1st level Craftpriest))
Boris the Fighter – male human Hero (4th level Fighter)
Daphne – female human Blade-Singer (3rd level Bladedancer)
Adam – male human Arcanist (1st level Mage) [see also the comments at the bottom]
Jaxby – male Elven Warrior-Seer (2nd level Spellsword)

Recovering from Injury
None

NPCs
Dergos – male human guide, still sold on the glory of adventuring
Morgullen – professional torchbearer, prefers to be called ‘Len
Colemore – professional porter
Thesa and Hyrion – female human and male elf bodyguards
The Norse Whisperers – Rival Adventuring Party with a Norse theme


Yggsday, June 1st, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
[Scrolling back time slightly.]
At the end of the day, after returning from the Barrowmaze and selling off the loot, Boris and Godric made donations at the Shrine of St. Ygg and received a casting of Cure Light Wounds on each of them.  Additionally, Quillian made the arrangements for Chick-Magnet to receive a proper burial in the town graveyard and commissioned a small headstone.

Sunday, June 2nd, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
With no sign of Dr. West [teleported elsewhere in the Barrowmaze last session], the Revengers gathered up their hirelings to head south back into the Barrowmoor.  The Norse Whisperers arrived just as they were leaving, asking if the Revengers still wanted their protection during the trip.  Boris shrugged and agreed to the same traveling arrangement as before, the Norse Whisperers would provide “protection” while the Revengers followed their guide to the field of barrows.

Along the way, the adventurers noticed an army of seven giant frogs [yes, that is the correct group name for frogs], each about one foot long and brightly colored.  This identified the frogs as highly poisonous and the adventurers decided to avoid them entirely.

Arriving at the field of barrows a bit before Noon, the two adventuring groups split up and started investigating the barrows.  The Revengers went into to Barrow 16 and used the stairs there to go down deeper to the Barrowmaze itself.  They were searching for clues as to where Dr. West was teleported, but at the diagonal hall they ran into two wights feeding on the corpses there.  Daphne tried to turn the wights, but they were not impressed and advanced on the adventurers.  The Revengers fled up to the surface immediately, not ready to unexpectedly take on wights.

Back on the surface, while they caught their breath, they discussed their options.  They decided that, while they had the means to defeat one wight, two wights was too dangerous right now and hoped Dr. West found another way out of the dungeon.  Instead, they went over to Barrow 25 to investigate it.  Entering the barrow, they found it, like most of the others, previously looted.  They searched the four chambers of this barrow, noting that the locked bronze doors had been bypassed by attacking the stone walls they were mounted in, rather than picking the locks.

The Revengers next went over to Barrow 33.  It too had been opened and looted, but the plant growth around the sealing stone suggested the looting happened a year or more ago.  They found the single-chamber crypt had been looted, with the mummified corpse just dumped on the floor next to the sarcophagus.  Offended by this lack of decorum, Adam and Godric lifted the mummy [after Boris verified it was inanimate] and put it back into the sarcophagus.  Underneath the mummy they found a gold ring, which promptly went into the loot sack.  Sometimes virtue is rewarded.

Finished with that barrow, The Revengers went over to Barrow 34 and found it still sealed!  They took an early rest and then Boris spent 20 minutes with the sledgehammer breaking open the sealing stone.  The exposed stairs deposited the adventurers in a rectangular room with two stepped passages leading down to stone doors, a broken and cracked statue of Impurax [which Quillian easily identified], and a tapestry visible down at the end of a short side passage.  The tapestry drew all of their attention, memories of ghouls hiding behind tapestries haunting them.  Boris threw a torch at the tapestry [which caught on fire and started to smolder] to verify nothing was hiding behind it.  Satisfied it was safe, he was then forced to pull down the rotted tapestry and stamp it out before the room filled up with choking smoke.

Satisfied that no ghouls would attack them from that tapestry, the Revengers turned and descended down the passage on the right.  The stone door opened inward and released ankle-deep water when Boris opened it.  On shelves, the room held the personal papers of those interred in this crypt.  There was also another stone door in the far corner.  Quillian organized the packing of the scrolls and tomes into various backpacks.  Tired, the group returned to the first chamber to rest.

After their rest, the group went back down the right-hand passage and opened the far door.  This exposed a diagonal passage that ended at yet another door.  Boris went up and knocked on the door before opening it [I’m not certain why].  Behind this door was another crypt and three ghasts [now ready, thanks to the knocking], which attacked immediately.  Daphne called upon the power of Ianna and was able to turn the ghasts, who fled to a far corner of the crypt to cower from Daphne.  Boris grimly went over and hacked the cowering creatures to bits.

That task dealt with, the group investigated the crypt and discovered the dead bodies of two of the Norse Whisperers, Rollo and Ivar!  Confused at how the bodies arrived, the group carefully searched everywhere and found a concealed crawlspace to the surface in one of the burial alcoves.  The revengers relieved Ivar of his spellbook and Rollo of his magical [+1] leather armor before wrapping up the corpses for travel.  Adam took the time to behead the ghast corpses and packed them in a sack.  The adventurers then hauled the bodies to the entry chamber and set them down there before turning to the other descending passage from this room.

Once again Boris pushed opened the door and found another partially submerged crypt.  Many bodies, still wrapped in bandages, floated in the murky, ankle-deep water.  There were stairs leading up to an elevated platform holding two black stone statues of helmed, male warriors and a white marble sarcophagus.  The adventurers were immediately suspicious of the statues.

Boris, Godric, and Daphne moved forward to investigate the white marble sarcophagus.  Daphne stopped at the bottom of the steps up to the platform.  Godric stopped at the top of the stairs.  Boris, always with an eye towards the two black stone statues, approached the sarcophagus – and THAT’S when three of the mummies floating in the water animated and something inside the sarcophagus started pushing aside the lid!

The adventurers ran.

Even so, Boris was hit twice by the mummies on his way out and affected by mummy rot.  He pulled the door closed behind him as he fled the room.  The rest of the group picked up the dead Norse Whisperers and all fled the barrow [just in case the mummies opened the door from the inside].  The Revengers made their way across the field to the meeting point and found the rest of the Norse Whisperers already there.

The Revengers turned over the bodies of Rollo and Ivar and the ghast heads to the Norse Whisperers, explaining where they found the bodies [but leaving out that the spellbook and magic armor were now packed away in the loot bag].  The Norse Whisperers thanked the Revengers for retrieving the bodies and killing the things that had killed their friends.  Then both groups headed back to Helix.  Along the way, the Norse Whisperers talked about the funeral games they would hold in Rollo and Ivar’s honor.

Once back in Helix, the Revengers sold off their loot [minus the +1 leather armor and the spellbook] and the Amulet of Animate Dead taken a couple days earlier from the Set worshippers.  This realized a great deal of cash [and XP].

Daphne went over to the blacksmith and asked if he could inscribe the image of Ianna on the magic leather armor she now had without damaging the magic.  Karg stated he could, but it would take a week to do.  Daphne accepted that and paid half down for the work.  [Karg actually subcontracted the work to a leatherworker he knows in Ironguard Motte.]

Daphne and Adam decided to pool resources and make the funeral games for Rollo and Ivar a week long party and spend a combined 8000 gp over the next week to make this happen.  [They are spending gold to no advantage in order to bank it as XP for their next character, per the ACKS rules.  The players know death can happen at any time and don’t want to restart at 1st level when it does.]

Quillian set aside six grants of 300 gp each for any local projects that catch his fancy.  [This pushes the edge of the rules for banking XP, but we’ll see how it goes.]

Moonday, June 3rd, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
Boris, Jaxby, and Quillian traveled to Ironguard Motte for personal business: Boris to get the Mummy Rot removed [requires Remove Curse be cast and no one in Helix can cast it] and Jaxby to get new spells [as he made third level and can cast 2nd-level spells].  Quillian went to finally trade away that library of Impurax tomes and scrolls for something he can use.  He was able to make deals with the discrete bookshop there to swap the Impurax documents for books and scrolls able to function as an Arcane Library [able to research up to 2nd-level spells].  It will take a month for all the books to arrive, but Quillian has a solid contract for them and is confident.

End of Session


[A Note about the character named “Adam”: one of the players’ name is also Adam.  Adam does not also play Adam, Tony does.  It will never stop being amusing when I, as the DM, call on Adam, looking at Tony, and Adam also looks up.  The rest of the table also approves of this and is amused, particularly Adam’s brother.  They are amused enough that they insisted I explain this on the blog. 😁 ]

[Quillian’s player announced that he’ll be out of town for the next several months due to a change in job while he gets trained for his new duties.  On one hand, it is great news that he has a permanent job again instead of temp gigs, but on the other hand we’ll miss having him at the table while he’s gone for training and hope he gets assigned here once his training is done.]



The Motley Crew
Session 1: The Start
…
Session 11: TPK

The Revengers
Session 12: Rise of the Revengers
Session 13
Session 14

Session 16