[The Delvers finish exploring the upper level of the underground complex.]
[This game uses the Fifth Revised Edition of the Hero System rules along with the Fantasy Hero supplement. This session happened June 17, 2019.]
Player Characters:
Jala – human female – a person of discretion, studying aspects of the Law [to avoid them] at the Dust Academy
Clarence – human male – studies Religion in Temples district, coincidentally the group healer
Zarek the Red – fox male – a cerebrally-unfettered spell researcher [read: Mad Scientist] turned into a talking fox, studying Natural Philosophy at Monarch University to find a way to become human again
Vorgand – human female – professional porter and Adventurer’s Aide, irregularly attends classes at The Tested military academy, practitioner of Steel Serpent martial arts
Ricky the Astrologer – human male – has a thirst for knowledge but doesn’t know what he’s searching for, currently studying Astrology at Monarch University
Nick Stalwart – human male – part of the Stalwart family of merchants, studying Mathematics at The Interesting Institute of Profitable People, a college at Monarch University
Non-Player Characters:
Torsten, Fish, Harek, Kol – surviving bandits and now torchbearers for the Delvers Guild
Lester “Les” Stalwart – human male, younger brother of Nick and general tag-along [DNPC]
Freysday, October 11th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
[Resumes underground, ~3:00 PM]
After a short discussion, the Delvers decided to finish exploring the level they are on before descending the stairwell to the lower level or levels of this complex.
The group backtracked to the large oval-shaped room, checking an empty side room along the way. They went to the far end of the oval-shaped room, which they had not paid much attention to earlier [being distracted by the silver inlay on the magic circle and the body behind the desk]. The hallway out of this end of the room went south and they could see it turned west at the edge of their torchlight. However, immediately to their left there was an odd configuration of wall in the oval-shaped room.
The wall here was only three feet high and there was a room beyond it. The weird part was the full sized door with door frame in the middle of the low wall. Zarek floated over towards it so he could see inside the room. It was a 20 x 30 foot room with a large oval ring of a table. There was glass scattered on the floor on the other side of the low wall, suggesting the low wall once had a glass upper half. In the corner of the room to his right he could see two corpses, plus he saw a third corpse in the far, left-hand corner.
The delvers entered the room to look around. Jala and Clarence investigated the pair of corpses on the right. Zarek dropped his Stoney Skin spell to cast Detect Magic and floated around the room looking for magic. Ricky searched the body over on the left while Vorgand and Nick kept watch.
Clarence was able to determine that the two elves were killed by magical violence, which was not a surprise due to the apparently exploded open glass walls. Jala found some jewelry still on them, but it appeared that the bodies had been searched previously, long ago. Zarek found a wand in a holster strapped to the underside of the hollow oval table – he also found a fourth corpse on the floor in the center of the hollow oval table. That body was also searched.
Having thoroughly searched that room, the Delvers went south to explore the corridor exiting the oval-shaped room there and hopefully circle back to the entrance. They investigated two open doorways on the left [east] and found they both led to empty rooms. The turned back a bit to check a closed door on the west side of the hallway. This door was locked, had no keyhole, but had an odd panel beside the door. Jala held the keys she had stolen from the cleaning golem to the panel and heard a click from the door – it was now unlocked! On the other side of the door was the cleanest privy the group had ever seen. Tile and ceramics were on every surface. Impressed, but finding no easy loot, they moved on.
As they got closer to the corner, they could see a pile of…something in front of the door that probably led to another corner room. The pile or lump was about five feet high and eight or so feet square. It was covered with dust and seemed translucent. Zarek borrowed a torch from one of the torchbearers and moved to one side of the lump. Jala, working out what Zarek was doing, moved to the opposite site to see if she could see what was inside the lump. Not wanting to touch it, she used her dagger to scrape away the layer of dust resting on the lump. It gave a bit. Suddenly the entire lump shivered and then attempted to slam Jala against the wall! Jala noticed its movement just in time and dove out of the way, landing on the floor in the hallway. The lump [a desiccated gelatinous cube] continued to attack.
During the fight, Clarence failed to cast his Sacred Flame spell twice in a row. Vorgand tried a lunge and a series of rapid attacks, discovering that the lunge was by far the more successful attack as the series of quick attacks barely injured the thing. Zarek and Nick both cast lightning spells at it, which healed up the wounds Vorgand had inflicted! She was not pleased. Ricky used his Dark Leeching spell on the lump to great effect – great enough that it started attacking him. Ricky was able to dodge its attacks just long enough for Vorgand and Clarence [who finally got his magic working] to kill it.
Most of the lump's liquefied innards oozed out of the slash marks Vorgand had made and the group could see the glint of metal in what remained inside the hardened shell. Zarek climbed inside and cast Detect Magic, locating a magic dagger and a pair of magic earrings. At this point a cleaning golem walked up, carrying a mop, and the Delvers wisely got out of its way. Zarek floated over to the privy to clean the gooey innards from his paws and fur.
While the golem mopped up [and once Zarek returned, wet but clean], Jala and Vorgand unlocked and opened the door to the corner room. Vorgand was just taking a breath to remind Jala about the bad air likely to be inside when Jala opened the door and the bad air flooded over Vorgand, who passed out from being unable to breathe. Zarek quickly floated in and pulled Vorgand all the way down the hallway to the west until he arrived at the entry room, where there was good air. The rest of the delvers followed [after opening the other closed door in the vestibule] and took a rest while Vorgand recovered and the closed rooms aired out for a bit. Zarek took a moment to fly back up to the surface to get and idea what time it was and discovered it was later in the afternoon than he thought.
After the rest, the Delvers returned to the corner room they had just opened. The air was still a bit iffy, but they explored anyway. They found three elven corpses, two with crossbow bolts to the heart and one next to the crossbow and with a bolt to the throat. The crossbow detected as magic when Zarek cast Detect Magic, as did the tripped security magic on the desk drawers. Jala checked the desk drawers to be thorough [and found nothing but ashes], while others relieved the corpses of their jewelry.
Done with the corner room, the Delvers investigated the door across the vestibule. This led to a set of two rooms connected by an open doorway. The first room had a couple of desks, but not as fancy as the desks the Delvers had found in the corner rooms. These had no magical security, but their paper contents had long ago rotted and just touching the papers turned them to slime.
In the adjacent room, the delvers found four corpses lined up against the wall. Clarence and Ricky investigated the corpses [Ricky for loot and Clarence to determine how they had been killed]. Just as Zarek floated in to check for magic, Ricky and Zarek noticed a shadow moving against the torchlight. Two of the corpse shadows detached and started attacking Clarence and Ricky!
In the ensuing fight, Clarence was drained heavily by one of the shades. Ricky was able to avoid the same fate, but at the cost of casting no magic [he kept blowing the magic roll or having to abort to a Dodge]. Nick cast defensive magic and then a rapid-fire lightning attack that obliterated one of the shades [and cost Nick some STUN from the autofire attack using up all his END and then some]. Vorgand pulled the magic dagger from the loot bag and attacked the remaining shade with it. The other shade was ended by the Delvers before it ended Clarence, but it was a close thing.
After checking a last room [and finding another amazingly clean privy], the Delvers decided that they were done exploring for the day. They returned to the “commons room” and packed out 10 of the wooden chairs from there, hoping to sell them in Aegea as elven antiques for a profit.
Once on the surface, the Delvers made a deal with the four ex-bandits to wait here for them and keep an eye on the goats and they would pay them for being torchbearers as their exploration continued. The ex-bandits [somewhat terrified of the capabilities of the Delvers] agreed to this readily. [The players were going to take the ex-bandits with them to town as guild employees until it was pointed out that the torchbearers had no horses and if they all walked back to Little Wythford, the Delvers would miss the ferry back to Aegea and therefore miss classes the following day.]
While dinner was being made, Jala took an hour to conceal the entrance to the underground area, moving plants and brush to obscure the stone opening. It was getting dark, but she was satisfied with her efforts.
Yggsday, October 12th, 1st year of the reign of King Vladik the Gamesman
Early in the morning, before the dawn, the Delvers packed up their gear and the antique chairs on their horses and pack animal. They rode west then south to get around the mountain and back to Little Wythford.
The Delvers wanted to load their chairs directly onto the ferry, but the captain wouldn’t allow it, stating they needed to be in crates and not just loose on deck. The Delvers didn’t have time to do that and still catch the Noon ferry, so they rented some warehouse space from Nick’s family and stored the chairs in Little Wythford before returning the horses. They put down a deposit for horses next weekend and then hustled back to the ferry, getting there just in time.
The ride across Dragon Bay was uneventful and the ferry docked at Aegea a little before sundown. The Delvers made their way to The Library, where they ordered drinks and dinner as celebration of the first successful expedition by the Delvers Guild. They discussed over dinner what each needed to do during the week [in addition to attending classes and training sessions]. Zarek will research the wands to determine their command words and do some craming on monsters, Ricky will research the magic circles and cram on them, Vorgand and Nick will work out the value of the loot the group secured and ask around about prices on elven antique chairs, and Jala will follow Vorgand and Nick to learn better value evaluation [Trading skill]. Clarence will spend time recovering from the shade attacks.
Additionally, the group decided it was time to start pooling resources for a guild house. They will keep an eye out for a good location and report back suggestions at the next guild meeting.
End of Session
[So I awarded 2 experience points for this outing and everyone but Clarence’s player donated a point to a group base of operations (the guild house). Clarence spent his two points on raising his Recovery so he recovers as much END as he spends with his holy armor spell running each turn.]
[I rushed to get the lower level sketched out before the game as I thought the PCs were going to descend, but then they decided to finish the first level. I knew what I wanted, but hadn’t actually written it out yet due to other projects I have going. This will give me time to flesh out the lower level and detail the room descriptions better.]
Delvers Guild
Session A, Character Creation Part 1
Session B, Character Creation Part 2
Session 01
Session 02
Session 03, Part 1
Session 03, Part 2
Session 05
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