SR30: The Shadowed Obelisk – Part 3

This session happened Friday, December 10, 2010, and was the only session I ran this past weekend.  This is the conclusion of the adventures in the Shadowed Obelisk.

Adventuring Group:
Su Bel (human cleric)
Tycho von Helmont (elf alchemist)
Agnes Sunbeard (dwarf rogue)
Thorngrim (half-orc sorcerer)
 – Kainen (Thorngrim’s human fighter cohort)

Note: the list of player characters is in player sitting order, from my left and then clockwise around the table.

[Recap: Deciding to investigate Three Peaks, the adventurers cleared a road there from Drop-off Tower.  In a deep valley between the three mountains, the adventurers discovered The Shadowed Obelisk.  Cautiously entering the Obelisk, the adventurers were trapped inside when the entrance magically sealed over.  Forced to find another way out, the adventurers explored the larger-inside-than-outside interior of the Obelisk.  The mysterious Jack disappeared, the “schoolroom of the undead” was cleared, many were rooms explored, and the looping nature of the dungeon and an indicator of the length of time some of the inhabitants have been here was discovered.]

When the adventurers awoke in the morning, they discovered Mog was now missing.  This was somewhat worrisome and the adventurers decided to push on and find a means of exiting the Obelisk.  Heading south from the room they had camped in, the corridor ended in a door and a side passage.  The side passage ended in stairs descending into a flooded area.  Not wanting to deal with a flooded area of unknown dimensions, the adventurers chose to investigate the door.

Agnes inspected the door and listened for clues to what was on the other side.  The door was unlocked and untrapped and she heard deep voices and smelled BBQ.  Agnes opened the door on a square room full of trolls in the process of cooking a kobold on a spit.  The trolls were slow to respond and after a couple of fireballs from Su Bel, started to break.  Ultimately, the trolls failed to flee far enough away and were brought down by more fire from Su Bel and Tycho.

Leaving the troll bodies behind and continuing south, the adventurers came across two doors: one leading to another hallway, the other to a room with a tilted floor.  The adventurers crossed the tilted room and exited another door to a room with a water fountain.  Three of the four fish-shaped fountains poured water into a large basin, while a fourth sprayed a corner of the room, where the water pooled and then flowed out a corridor.  Agnes investigated the pool and determined that the fish could be rotated.  After rotating them in different configurations (and flooding the room somewhat), she noticed that the water seemed to leak out of one corner of the room, indicating a secret passage of some sort.  Unfortunately, there was no way to access the door from this side.  The fish were left facing the basin and the group left through the north passage, following the flow of water out of the room.  This hallway ended in stairs leading down to a flooded area, probably the far side of the flooded are they had discovered earlier.  They also noticed the water level was slowly lowering and decided to return to this area later, once the water had drained away.

Backtracking, the adventurers followed the passage skipped prior to entering the tilted room.  This lead to an empty room with a secret passage to the room at the bottom of the pit Tycho, Thorngrim, and Kainen had fallen down the previous day.  Somehow, without descending stairs or a sloped passage, the group had found their way to a deeper level of the Obelisk.  To say this complicated their mapping effort is a significant understatement.

The door out of the pit room opened onto a large hallway full of ogres.  Getting the drop on the ogres, the adventurers used the last of Su Bel’s fireballs and several more of Tycho’s fire explosives to kill of the ogres, but not the ogre magi leading them.  A short game of cat and mouse started, the ogre magi using its at-will invisibility to disappear after each attack was made.  This worked until it made an attack of opportunity on Su Bel and became visible, unwisely exposing itself to Thorngrim’s magical attack, which killed it.

This hall had four doors out.  The southern one held a kobold barracks.  The kobolds were surprised to see the adventurers, but made no hostile moves.  After a short conversation, the adventurers left the kobold area, agreeing to send word if the adventurers found a way out of the Obelisk.

The northern door led to a smaller room with a stone statue wearing an ornate golden key.  Agnes moved in to investigate and the statue animated and attacked.  [The adventure calls for a living statue – I used a stone golem instead as I had stats for that.]  This fight was difficult and dangerous until the spellcasters got involved.  Aware that the golem would be immune to most magics, they cast greater invisibility on Agnes and displacement on Tycho and Kainen.  The powerful hits from the statue thundered on the ground as it regularly missed the adventurers front line while Tycho lobbed acid bombs onto the statue, slowly dissolving it.  In the meantime, invisible Agnes made multiple attempts to steal the key off the animated statue, eventually succeeding just as the statue was destroyed by Tycho.  The key was very ornate and appeared to be made of brass or gold feathers – the Feathered Key of Qual the adventurers had read about the previous year!

Being thorough, the adventures checked the other passages from the Ogre Hall.  One led through a series of rooms to the Library of Blank Books.  The other passed a room of strange, abstract sculptures [a tesseract, a Klein bottle, etc. – I found some images online to show the players] and eventually connected to the stairs across from the circular snake room.

Suspecting the Feathered Key would let them escape the Obelisk, the group backtracked to the room where the hooded woman Anise was still carving statues.  They told her they likely had the way out and asked if she would she like to follow them out.  She quickly gathered her tools and joined the group.

After checking a few last rooms (leading Anise to question whether or not they actually knew where the exit was), the group worked their way back to the first room, where the stairs had been.  When they entered this room, the Feathered Key started to glow and the wall blocking the stairs evaporated.  At this point Agnes stated she wanted to try and find Jack before leaving.  Anise wished her well, but wanted to leave now.  She and the adventurers parted ways here.

The adventurers followed their map to the room where they had first found Jack.  Jack was not there.  After a very short discussion, the group decided they had done their best and returned to the first room, where they finally exited the Obelisk.  From the Shadowed Valley they followed their road back to Drop-off Tower where they rested and split the loot they recovered from the Shadowed Obelisk.

*End of Session*

[This adventure locale used the Moebius Dungeon from Tower of the Archmage fitted into my Pathfinder campaign.]