[A reduced crew of Revengers head back out to the Barrowmaze with a new recruit and pull off a desperate gamble at a high cost.]
[Also? SPOILERS! This series will spoil what’s in Barrowmaze, so take that into consideration before reading.]
PCs (The Revengers)
Daphne – female human Blade-Weaver (4th level Bladedancer)
Felix – male human Burglar (4th level Thief)
Adam – male human Theurgist (3rd level Mage)
Jaxby – male Elven Theurgist-Swordmaster (3rd level Spellsword)
Recovering from Injury
Boris the Fighter – male human Hero (4th level Fighter)
NPCs
Dergos – male human guide, still sold on the glory of adventuring, hired by Daphne
Colemore – professional porter, hired by Jaxby
Thesa and Hyrion – female human and male elf bodyguards, hired by Jaxby
Freysday, June 14th, through Cromsday, June 19th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The Revengers spent a week in Helix, waiting for their injured comrades to recover. Godric and his new henchman, Proximo, took a job acting as caravan guards for a cargo of goods from the Temple of St. Ygg heading to the main Cathedral in the capital as payment for having Proximo’s blindness curses removed [Godric’s player missed this session and the next due to work related issues, so his character is going off-stage for a bit]. That trip will take several weeks, leaving only Daphne and Adam in Helix. Looking to bolster their numbers, the two performed a small recruiting drive and found Felix, a burglar who traveled to Helix looking for the “dungeon in the swamp.” He came prepared with a Flametongue sword, Boots of Traveling & Springing, several potions and scrolls, and a strong acrobatic talent.
On the 19th, Jaxby finished his bedrest and sent messages to the Mercenary Guild for Colemore (his porter), Thesa (one of his hired bodyguards), and Hyrion (his other bodyguard) to be ready the next morning to head south. Daphne hired Durgos to guide the group again, but not ‘Len, as most of the group now had glowing weapons and a separate torchbearer was no longer needed. ‘Len was disappointed.
Freysday, June 20th, 23rd year of the reign of King Shurik the Nimble
The Revengers assembled early in the morning at the Mercenary Guild building to meet up with their hirelings before heading south, into the Barrowmoor. They evaded a giant leach on the way, arriving at the field of barrows just before Noon.
The group decided to re-evaluate the sealed door in Barrow 40. They walked past the two statues of Set [now missing their emerald eyes] and to the sealed door across the room from the entrance. Felix activated his Flametongue sword and easily cut through the rope and wax seal sealing the door. The 30x30 square room on the other side was a bit of a letdown. It contained a single sarcophagus and not much else. Felix and Daphne flanked the sarcophagus while Jaxby and his hirelings waited just outside the room. Adam opened the sarcophagus and found a skeletal corpse and two clockwork scorpions that activated!
Felix and Daphne both attacked the clockwork beasts and both missed. Jaxby, hearing the commotion, rushed in and smashed one of the devices to pieces. Adam fell back and cast Magic Missile at the second clockwork scorpion, heavily damaging it. The clockwork scorpion moved out of the sarcophagus and attacked Felix. It did minor damage to him with its claws, but due to the damage from Adam’s attack, instead of stinging Felix with its tail, it accidentally rammed its tail into the back of its own head, killing itself [I rolled a 1 on its attack with the tail and it only had 1 hit point, so a targeting malfunction seemed the most likely fumble].
With the clockwork scorpions dealt with, a gold circlet was retrieved from the corpse in the sarcophagus and then the Revengers left the barrow. They walked over to the irregularly shaped Barrow 39 and found that it collapsed long ago. Looking around, the next likely barrow was Barrow 38, so they walked over there and then took a rest.
Adam took a turn with the sledgehammer and after 20 minutes of hammering, cracked the sealing stone open. Felix descended first to look for traps. This crypt was odd – instead of a stone floor, the floor was made of metal plates, shaped to look like flagstones. Additionally, the crypt was only 10 feet wide, but 40 feet long. At the far end, Felix could see the light from his flaming sword being reflected by something made of gold and something covered in jewels. Distracted by the gold, Felix only noticed that the metallic flagstones in the first 10 feet each had single symbol for Water, Earth, Air, or Fire on them [he rolled terrible on his Find Traps roll]. He learned the significance when he stepped on one with an Air symbol on it and a cloud of darts fired out from bas relief faces in the walls. Luckily, the majority missed him and only two bounced off his armor, the rest embedded themselves in the opposite wall.
Suddenly much more focused on where he was stepping, Felix avoided any metal plates with Air symbols on them. The next 10 feet did not have the elemental symbols, but he just noticed three grooves in the walls and ceiling. Looking ahead, he could see a dais at the far end of the crypt with a gold urn on it and a jeweled horn hanging on the back wall above it. Rather than tempt what he suspected were three more deadly traps, Felix made use of his Boots of Traveling & Springing and leapt the intervening 30 feet, landing safely on the dais. He inspected the urn and the horn for traps and found none. He put both into a loot sack and then leapt back towards the entrance, luckily not landing on a trapped flagstone in the first 10 feet of the room. He then carefully walked back out.
The group climbed to the top of the barrow to scout out the nearby area. They could see two barrows to the north, one to the North-Northwest (#36) and one to the North-Northeast (#37). The one to the North-Northwest had no obvious entrance, suggesting it might be completely covered by dirt and grass. The one to the North-Northeast had an obvious entrance, so they decided to try that one first.
Barrow 37 had a heavy stone door sealing it off instead of a stone slab. Felix checked the door for traps and found none, but it was too heavy for him to pull open. Adam tried, but was struggling until Jaxby just stepped up and pulled it open. [Jaxby has an 18 Strength, who knew elves were so strong?]
Felix cautiously descended into the barrow, finding a large, long room with a foyer area flanked by two statues of Nergal, blocking passage with crossed scythes but portions of the statues broken off and laying on the floor. At the far end of the chamber was a skeletal warrior sitting on a tall black throne. There are piles of skulls and other bones all over the floor, some of the piles scattered by partial collapses of the ceiling.
This set off Felix’s paranoia. After verifying the foyer was not trapped, Felix called down the rest of the group – they didn’t like the looks of things either. The grouped prepped for battle and then Felix and Daphne slowly made their way halfway across the chamber. There, Felix fired a single arrow at the skeletal warrior sitting in the black throne. Expecting the skeletal warrior to animate, they were caught a little off guard when a pulse of negative energy rose from the floor, forming a monstrous body from the skeletal debris as it arose. This was a Barrow Abomination! [I forgot to check to see if any of the skeletons activated as well, but there was only a 25% chance of that, so in hindsight, that was fine.]
Felix and Adam attacked the Abomination, doing maximum damage with their ranged weapons [both rolled natural 20s], while Daphne was stunned by its sudden appearance [she rolled a 1 on her surprise check]. Then the Abomination hit both Daphne and Felix [IIRC] with tentacles made of negative energy. This started looking bad.
Jaxby and Adam quickly talked out a plan and Jaxby moved forward with his bodyguards while Adam held position in the foyer. The next round, Felix attacked and hit the Abomination, disrupting its spell casting [yes, it also casts spells], while Jaxby and Adam both cast Protection from Evil, the areas of effect just touching. This provided a safe passage for Felix and Daphne to fall back through. Daphne ran to the back of Adam’s spell so she could cast her own Protection from Evil spell, extending the safe area up into the stairs. Then things went sideways.
The Abomination could not attack those protected by the spells, but could move through the area of effect, so it moved to the stairs to either block the exit or take advantage of any opportunities. It knew if it tried to cast again, Felix would hit it, disrupting the spell, so it had to be patient.
Instead of fleeing, Felix instead pushed forward to look for anything useful or valuable, putting him at the opposite end of the large chamber from the Abomination. It decided to chance a casting. Daphne put up her Protection from Evil spell as Jaxby dropped his and moved to the stairs with his bodyguards. The Abomination cast Fireball at Felix, filling the entire far end of the chamber with flames, killing Felix.
Jaxby told his hirelings to flee, immediately and they ran for it, skirting part the Abomination and running up the stairs to the surface. Daphne also ran for the surface while Adam prepared to cast Protection from Evil a second time on the stairs, hopefully holding the passage open for Jaxby. Jaxby instead ran for Felix’s corpse – he had an idea. The Abomination cast Web on the stairs before Adam could cast his spell and both the stairs and Adam were webbed up.
Adam, literally in a bind, cast his last spell for the day, Magic Missile. As a pyromancer, the missiles manifested as shards of flame that struck the Abomination…and set the webs on fire. The webs burned hotly, burning Adam as well. His screams of pain drew Daphne’s attention on the surface. She returned to the top of the stairs and through the black smoke and flames saw Adam aflame!
The next round, Jaxby searched through Felix’s loot bag and pulled out the jeweled horn, hoping it was both magic and useful. He blew on it and learned it was both! A Barrow Wight clawed its way up out of the floor, dressed in Norse armor. It turned to Jaxby and asked, “What is thy bidding, master?” [It was a Horn of the Dead, a new item in the Barrowmaze book. Sort of like a Horn of Valhalla, but with a catch we’ll see at the end of the fight.] Jaxby pointed at the Abomination and said, “Kill it!” This drew the Abominations attention away from Adam and it moved to attack the Barrow Wight.
The Barrow Wight and the Barrow Abomination traded massive blows, the Barrow Wight with its claws, the Abomination with a massive bite attack. The flames on Adam burned out, dropping him to his knees. Jaxby took shelter behind the scorched, black throne, waiting to see which undead was victorious.
The next round both undead, staggering from their wounds, flailed ineffectively at each other. While Daphne cast healing magic on Adam in the stairs [reviving him from negative hit points], Jaxby advanced on the Barrow Abomination and attacked it. He failed to drop it and the abomination split its attacks between the Barrow Wight and Jaxby. One of the strikes hit Jaxby and dropped him to zero hit points. Jaxby slumped to the ground as the Barrow Wight made its attack and destroyed the Barrow Abomination!
Just as the surviving adventurers were going to cheer, the Barrow Wight announced, “My task is complete,” and fell on Jaxby, dragging Jaxby below the floor to the underworld. [As per the Horn of the Dead description, this is the catch to using the Horn of the Dead instead of a Horn of Valhalla.]
Not wanting to lose two companions to this barrow, Daphne and Adam went back into the crypt to bind up Felix’s corpse for transportation to Ironguard Motte. They discovered behind the black throne a chest and two coffers. Weakened and out of spells, they chose to haul the chest and two coffers back to town rather than get caught here by something else. They packed everything up with the help of Colemore, Jaxby’s porter, and returned to Helix.
End of Session
[So the session ran long and we abbreviated wrapping up the adventure because I had to be at work early the next morning. We’ll start next session with the opening of the chest and coffers and the introduction of a new character to replace Jaxby. I had a different scene in mind after the fight was over, but I didn’t expect Jaxby to drop exactly as the fight ended and with no other characters nearby to try and stop the Barrow Wight from pulling Jaxby down into the underworld.]
[I did roll on the Mortal Wounds Table for Adam as he went into negative hit points due to the burning webs. He only needs a night of bedrest, but his genitals were damaged and now he can no longer have children. Felix had heavy negative modifiers on the Tampering with Mortality Table and then rolled poorly the first time and had to try again. As a result, he owes his deity a quest, is now blind, and needs a month of bedrest. The player took this as a sign and retired the character.]
The Motley Crew
Session 1: The Start
…
Session 11: TPK
The Revengers
Session 12: Rise of the Revengers
Session 13
Session 14
Session 15
Session 16
Session 18
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