Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Dyson’s Delve – Session 4 – Super Rat Gets Creeped Out

This session happened Wednesday, December 8, 2010.  This campaign uses the Dyson’s Delve dungeon pages on A Character for Every Game.  We are using the Pathfinder RPG, so some adjustments were made (or so I’ve been told).  This was a short game as I was late in arriving.

Adventuring Group:
Harkaitz of the Red Soul, Cleric of Ra (male human cleric)
Wednesday (female elf rogue)
Sahar (female human fighter)
Luna (female elf sorcerer)
“Electric” Frankie Hu (male dwarf monk)

SPOILER ALERT: If You Might Play Through Dyson's Delve, Stop Reading

After taking time to sell off the goblin gear to the village trader, assess the value of collected treasure, and purchasing some additional gear (oil flasks, manacles, and some healing potions - NOT a list of related items), the group of adventurers now known as Super Rat (at least to their enemies) returned to the Delve.  The group’s goal was to root out any further goblins in the dungeon and make the village safe.

Consulting their maps, the adventurer’s decided to descend the stairs nearest the entrance to the dungeon.  This led to a small set of caves.  At the bottom of the stairs was a pile of dead rats, partially eaten and the group anticipated goblins with their giant ferret pets.  The passage forked almost immediately, one 5-foot wide passage and another, narrower one.  Frankie explored the wider passage and found a nest of rats, which immediately attacked.  After Luna used burning hands to kill most of the giant rats [doing more damage in one casting than Harkaitz in three], the rest of the rats were quickly dispatched.

The rat’s nest was a dead end, so the adventurers moved to squeeze through the narrower passage.  On the other side, Frankie found a ghoul which attacked him.  A short fight happened, with Harkaitz greatly weakening the ghoul with a wave of channeled positive energy.  After that, Frankie killed the monster.  In a side cave, the adventurers found the ghoul's larder and some stairs down.

The ghoul encounter gave the adventurers pause.  The only other stairs down the group had discovered was in a temple like area with goblin bodies spiked to the pillars supporting the roof.  This set of stairs down was guarded by a ghoul, which seemed unlikely to be allied with the goblins.  What was going on further down in the Delve?

Following the stairs down previously guarded by the ghoul, the adventurers found another cave.  Frankie edged forward quietly, but halfway across snapped a tripline, which dropped a rock from the ceiling upon him.  Luckily, his monk training provided the reflexes to avoid the worst of the trap and he took minimal damage.  [Actually, he blew his Reflex roll, but the DM only rolled one point of damage, so there you go.]  Deciding it was time for a professional to take over, Frankie called on Wednesday to take the front.  Harkaitz moved forward as well, providing light with the sunrod mounted in his shield.

Wednesday probed further into the cave, around a corner, where she found stairs down deeper into the earth…and another tripline, which dropped a boulder on her, crushing a shoulder.  Harkaitz quickly provided healing.  Tucked in a shadowed alcove in the cave (now illuminated), humanoid bodies were discovered on the floor and another passage was found in the back of the alcove.  Harkaitz stepped forward to investigate the bodies and try to determine what killed them when the bodies suddenly animated and attacked – they were actually zombies!  Harkaitz again channeled the positive energy of Ra, gravely injuring the zombies, allowing the other adventurers to quickly put them down (again).

While catching their breath, the adventurers decided that the zombies and the traps were guarding the stairs down.  This meant that there were likely no more goblins down this way, but something the goblins seemed to have feared.  After some discussion, it was decided to explore further on this level before heading down deeper.

The passage at the back of the alcove lead to another cavern which seemed to be a catacomb.  On the floor were three ghouls, obviously destroyed by unknown weapons.  Harkaitz performed rites over the ghouls bodies to keep them from rising while the other adventurers searched the area for treasure, discovering a goodly number of gold coins.  With obviously dangerous unknowns ahead, the group reorganized its marching order, putting Sahar and Harkaitz in the front to fend off any attacks.

Slowly advancing through the catacombs, the adventurers arrived at a door.  Beyond the door were stone crypts, covered in finished stone, and a breeze of charnel air.  Advancing slowly, rapping on sarcophagi to see if anything is moving inside, the party found steps down to a slightly lower chamber, the apparent source of the breeze.  In that chamber, the adventurers found the opening to a small airshaft and a flight of stirges.  Both Harkaitz and Sahar were drained of large amounts of blood during the fight, but the adventurers eventually won the fight.

With their stoutest members weakened from the blood loss and healing magic starting to run low, the adventurers decided to return to the surface and then the village.  A pair of ghouls attempted to stop the adventurers in the zombie room, but the adventurers weren’t having any and took them down quickly – Sahar’s sword arm was still deadly in combat.  After the ghouls, the way back to the surface was clear of enemies.

Back in town, the adventurers checked in with the sheriff to see if anything had been learned from the previous captives.  As it turned out, no one in town could speak the goblin tongue and the goblins could not speak the common tongue of man.  Frankie and Wednesday volunteered to help the sheriff question the goblins.  Harkaitz, with a constitution weakened by the stirges, decided to return to the inn and sleep, putting off learning what the goblins knew until the morrow, when he could seek Ra’s help in restoring Sahar and himself to full health.

*End of Session*

[I had to leave as it was a work night, but the others continued on with the questioning of the goblins.  I’ll report what they learned at the beginning of the next adventure log.  Additionally, the client site changed something in their filtering software and I can no longer make updates during the day.  As such, the next couple of updates will either post early in the morning on Tuesday or Thursday (if I have time to write them the night before) or in the evening.  My apologies about that.]

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